May 2010 - Issue 11

The Marquette Web Maestro is happy to announce the launch of the upautotech.com website! U.P. Auto Tech is a full service vehicle repair center located in Wetmore Michigan, three miles East of Munising.

Hello!
Welcome to the May edition of The Maestro Monthly, an email newsletter published by the Web Maestro. The intent of this publication is to bring you news and updates on Web Maestro services, local business news, as well as general Web related news.

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Creating a Business Facebook Page

by Nathan Lyle

Whether or not you're already using Facebook, there's many reasons you should create a Facebook page for your business or organization. It's free, it creates one more place people can find out you even exist, it gives you a place to announce events, it provides a way for people to easily tell others about you, it helps keep you in touch with your clients, etc. and so on. (I wouldn't recommend doing it just because all the other successful businesses are doing it, but they are.) This article is a general summary of creating a Facebook page. Some links are provided at the end where you can find more detail.

If you're not familiar with Facebook, there's basically a few different types of "pages" that exist. When you sign up for an account, you are given a personal profile which is your main Facebook identity. Once that profile exists, you can create as many other "pages" as you'd like for anything from your business, to your favorite flavor of jello. There's also something called a "group" which is more limited in features, and is typically best used for event related things like festivals, or products that have a large cultish fan base, like the iPod.

To create a page for your business, go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. If you don't already have a personal profile, this process will create one. (Note: you won't necessarily need to do anything with your profile, but a page has to be associated with a profile, and logging in to your profile is how you'll manage your page in the future.)

The next step is to choose a category and a name for your page. Put some thought into these, because you can't change them later. If your focus is local business, choose "Local" and then the option that best matches you. If you're promoting a brand, product or organization, then choose that along with the best option to match. The name will most likely be your business or organization name, but use the friendly version that you might use in casual conversation—don't worry about the llc or inc. Hit the "Create Page" button, and there you go. You've created your page. You'll probably find yourself tinkering with it off and on over time, but you should do a few basic things right away.

[read the full article]

Want to read more articles? Read previously published articles on our website's article archive.

Website Traffic Is Not The Key To Success

Guest Article by Mike Burke

Website traffic is deemed the single most important factor when it comes to the success of a website but that statement needs to be qualified. Although it's true that a constant stream of traffic is the lifeblood of a website, the quality of the traffic is far more important than the quantity.

Of course, any amount of website traffic is better than no traffic at all but even if you have the most perfect website, your site is doomed to fail if you are not getting visitors that are looking for the products or information you have available on your site.

It's easy to get caught up in a numbers game. It's exciting to see the number of visitors to your site climb from a few a day to a few hundred a day. On the surface, this looks like exactly what you want but if your visitors are looking for something other than what you are offering, for the most part, your website traffic is wasted.

You could have a great website design, compelling copy, the lowest prices and fantastic specials but all your efforts will be useless unless your website is drawing traffic that is interested in what you are providing or promoting.

What you need are visitors specifically interested in your product or service—you need 'targeted traffic'.

Don't think of targeted traffic as a sub-category of website traffic because they really are two separate entities. If you're marketing plan is designed to drive as much website traffic as possible to your site, no matter what kind of traffic it is, then you're not making effective use of your time and you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

The web is a very different venue than a shopping mall. A shopping mall relies on unfocused traffic, wondering from store to store, not looking for anything in particular but willing to spend it's money on an impulse.

Believe it or not, people surfing the web will leave a website after viewing it for only about 2 seconds. They're looking for specific items or information and if they don't quickly find what they are looking for on your site, they'll click out of your site and go to one of the other millions of sites on the web.

That's why most of the successful websites are tightly focused on their 'niche' and their marketing plan is focused on driving people to their site that are looking for what they offer - they understand the importance of 'targeted traffic'.

Of course, targeted traffic and a website focused on a particular 'niche' go hand and hand. Think about your website. Does it really lend itself to a specific product or service, or is it so broad that it tends to confuse potential customers?

Here are a few tips to help you prepare your website for targeted traffic:

Design your website to promote one particular product or service as your main item.

Determine the type of people that will be interested in your product or service and adjust your website to be attractive to them.

Establish the items or services that are 'closely' related to what you're promoting on your website. If you think that they would be interesting to your visitors, offer those items on your website as well.

Keep a constant flow of free content, that your visitors will find useful, on your website and add new content and information often. Invite your visitors back to your site to see the new material you're constantly adding.

Keep in mind, a website that's focused on a particular 'niche' item or service lends itself to targeted traffic simply because there is something specific to target and the more targeted traffic your site receives, the more productive your site will be.

There are many conventional and many not so conventional ways to drive targeted traffic to your website but we'll explore them in other articles.

The purpose of this article is to point out the difference between website traffic and targeted traffic. More isn't always better and if you focus your marketing on 'targeted traffic' you'll quickly find that the hits your getting on your website aren't just empty numbers—they'll be potential customers and, more importantly, sales.

About the author: Mike Burke is the author of numerous articles and has an affection for website marketing.

Miscellaneous Maestro Minutia

Our office is (almost) officially back in Marquette! Our new location is in the Masonic building on Washington street (we're in Suite U12 on the main floor.) We might be painting or organizing for a little while, but feel free to stop in and say hi. (And don't worry, we'll be here for a while, we promise. We're tired of moving.)

The U.P. Web Maestro is also now The Marquette Web Maestro, basically because as we expand into other locations we didn't want to rule out other areas in the U.P.

On July 1, 2010, VeriSign®, the registry for .COM and .NET, will increase wholesale domain prices - .COM will go up 7%, and .NET by 10%. The increase will be passed to registrars, and then, unfortunately, to consumers like you. As of July 1, we will be forced to raise registration and renewal prices for these two popular top-level domains. The new .COM price will be ($12.79 + 18¢ ICANN fee) $12.97, and the .NET price will be ($13.15 + 18¢ ICANN fee) $13.33. If you wish to avoid (or at least postpone) this price increase, you can renew your domain names early and add another year or more to your current expiration dates. Of course, should you have any questions, please give us a call at 906-228-5884. For more information, see the following:

• investor.verisign.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=431292

That's it for this time around, thanks for reading! Please feel free to let me know what you find useful or what you'd like to see us cover in future issues.

Sincerely,
Nathan Lyle
Email: nathan@sylvaniawebmaestro.com
Website: www.webmaestro.biz
Blog: www.webmaestro.biz/blog

Business Tip

Get To Know Your Neighbors

This might seem like an obvious one to some... but if you have a store-front or office, chances are you've got several neighbors. Do you know who they are? More importantly, do they know who you are? There's many good reasons to promote friendly business relationships, not the least of which is that they can be a source of new business for you. So if you haven't done so already, stop in next door and introduce yourself.