Internet Marketing at InternetBeacon.com

Social Networks: Facebook Fan Pages

2010-02-21T13:13:00.003-05:00

Hey, everyone. It’s Josh from the Internet Beacon, again. We’re a Search Engine Optimization firm located in Finksburg, MD. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means that we work hard so that prospective clients and sales leads find your website before others. For a more detailed look at what we do, check out our page of SEO Answers here and a blog post here.

This week I’d like to talk to you about social networks. We’ve talked before about Facebook and how to use it for personal reasons. Now, let’s talk about how to use them to your business’ advantage. As most of you probably know, members of Facebook can be fans of various things. A great way to increase your business’ online presence is to set up a fan page for your company.

A “Fan Page” means that you create a page similar to a profile that talks about your company and provides links and information you think your clientele and leads would like to know. This is a great tool for keeping people up to date on corporate events or changes to the business. For example, you could announce that you’re giving away coupon codes to the first 20 people to send you a private message through Facebook. Or, a better example, might be to announce a raffle. All that is required is to be a fan and post something on the company’s wall. This will encourage participation on the community’s behalf as well as spread the word about your business!

From here, users of Facebook will be able to create a link to your company’s page from their personal page. This means that when their friends see what they are up to, they’ll notice that “John Smith is now a fan of The Internet Beacon”. Coincidentally, this is a step we have also taken. You can be our fan here. One thing to note here is that you can get a custom URL for your business, i.e. www.Facebook.com/YourBusiness once you’ve reached 25 fans. That’s all you need to get your business a permanent link in the Facebook hierarchy.

That’s all for this week. Hopefully you can take a look at Facebook and see where you can put it to work for you. Be sure to check back next week for more tips and advice!

-Josh

Internet Beacon

InternetMarketing

Baltimore SEO

Maryland SEO

Facebook: Protecting Your Information

2010-02-12T05:47:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone, Josh from the Internet Beacon here. We’re a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm located in Finksburg, MD. SEO is a form of Internet Marketing. For a more detailed explanation, you can check out my blog post about it here. Today, I’d like to talk to you about privacy on Facebook.

We all like to think we’ve been especially careful when putting our information online. We take steps to ensure that we don’t put information like our credit card numbers, home address, etc where everyone can see. However, there are other ways for people to get a hold of your information.

Since Facebook is all about connecting with other people, usually friends and family, information gets shared with them. They have access to whatever you post. And why shouldn’t they? You’ve given them the okay. What you haven’t allowed, however, is the applications they use.We are going to prevent whatever goofy program your relative installed in their Facebook from accessing your name and address. This is incredibly easy to do.

First, login to Facebook. Then, go to the top right portion of the window. Click “Account” and then “Privacy Settings.” From here, you’ll see a link called “Applications and Websites”, click it. Of the several options here, you want to locate “What your friends can share about you” and then click on Edit Settings.

Welcome to your application privacy settings, at least concerning your friends. This screen will have a list of checkboxes detailing different facets of your account information. From here, you can now determine what exactly you want to share with your friends’ and family’s applications. Just make sure to save your changes!

That’s all for this week’s post. Be sure to check back for more every Friday.

-Josh, Internet Beacon

Baltimore SEO

Maryland SEO

Passwords: Keys to the Kingdom

2010-02-05T11:42:00.002-05:00

Hey, everyone! It’s Josh from the Internet Beacon. We’re a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firm in Finksburg, MD providing Internet Marketing. Our business focuses on getting your business’ name out there on the Internet. Essentially, we work so that popular search engines like Google or Yahoo are more likely to display your site when potential customers search for keywords related to your business.

This week I’d like to talk about Passwords. We all have them for various areas of our electronic lives. We all need them, and too often we are not as careful as we should be when choosing them. In choosing a password there are several things to consider.

An important part of choosing a password is the length. Certainly a lot of website give us guidelines when setting the password length, but they are often the minimum requirements. A good thing to keep in mind for password length is making them longer than 8 characters. This is because of the way that different operating systems interpret them. Without getting too technical, passwords are harder to break them if they are over 8 characters.

Another “best practice” is to include special characters and number in your passwords. This can turn something like “baseball” into b4s3ba!!”. Someone could easily guess your password if they know you well or your interests. However, simply knowing you like baseball will not be enough if you add in these steps. Someone could spend days trying to figure out the combination, and more often then not, they would be locked out before actually cracking your password.

Well, that’s all for this week. Hopefully, you now have a better idea of how to keep your personal accounts a little safer online. If you have any questions, feel free to email me!

-Josh
Internet Beacon

Baltimore SEO
Maryland SEO

Search Engine Optimization: Getting Your Name Out There

2010-01-29T11:30:00.001-05:00


Hey, everyone. Josh here from the Internet Beacon. We’re a Search Engine Optimization firm located in Finksburg, Maryland. In my previous posts, I’ve talked a little bit about helpful tips for using your computer and the Internet in general. Today, I’d like to get into what we really do here at the Internet Beacon.

The proper term for our business is SEO, meaning Search Engine Optimization. But what does that really mean? Well, our goal is to engineer your website so that when someone searches for a business that does what you do in your locality, your company will be among the first results. It's one of many forms of Internet Marketing. At first, it can seem slightly complicated. Knowing the ins and outs of how search engines, like Google, come up with their results is part of our job. We do a lot of behind the scenes work to get the job done.

Part of getting the job done involves checking keyword density. Keyword density is exactly what it sounds like. We make sure that keywords related to your company, let’s say “roofing Maryland” if you are a roofing company, appear prominently on your site. Part of this task is also making sure that it works organically on your site. You would get nowhere by having a paragraph comprised solely of “roofing Maryland”. Search engines know shortcuts like that are cheap and you can actually get your site penalized!

That’s just part of what we do for you here at the Internet Beacon. There are a lot of other methods for getting your business out there, but I could go on for pages and pages about them. Suffice it to say we worry about this stuff so you don’t! Well, that’s all for this week. I’ll see you next week.

-Josh
Internet Beacon

Baltimore SEO
Maryland SEO

FWD: Check the Sender!

2010-01-22T10:52:00.000-05:00

Hey, everyone. Josh from Internet Beacon, here. We’re a Search Engine Optimization firm in Finksburg, MD. Essentially, SEO is a form of Internet Marketing. We work hard so your business is among the first results when people try to find the service/product you offer. Today, I wanted to talk a little bit about safe use of one of the Internet’s biggest areas, e-mail. I know a lot of you are thinking, “I’m pretty safe with my email use”. But it never hurts to take another look at your usage.

One of the biggest concerns I hear is from people forwarding emails to others. The emails could contain something that seems pretty funny, like quiz to find out “Which Muppet You Are”, or others are politically motivated. Naturally, people want to pass information that they enjoy to their friends. However, of concern is where this information originates.

While a lot of interesting content is available online, it is very important that the source is examined. There are plenty of websites out there that seem legitimate. What they are really doing is spreading around malicious software without your knowledge and, sometimes, with your name attached! A good rule when using email is to check where the message was sent.

For example, any email you get from someone named “Me” or a variation of that is almost always a scam. Also, be careful of anyone whose name you do not instantly recognize. You should have a mental list of people you trust online (usually your family, friends, and coworkers). If anyone else sends you something, it is perfectly acceptable to be suspicious. In fact, I would caution against opening any messages from people whom you do not directly know.

Another important thing to consider the kind of email you get from the sender. Do they have a habit of forwarding anything and everything they see? It is often in good fun, but you should still be careful. Just because you trust them doesn’t mean you trust wherever they got the link, picture, etc. they sent you. The best defense here is common sense and critical thinking. In addition, using an email service that scans email attachments for you as well as having up to date Anti-Virus software on your PC both go a long way towards safety.

In the end, e-mail security is just like any other kind of security. You wouldn’t open packages left on your doorstep sent from someone you don't know, and the same rules apply here. Remember, just because it’s online doesn’t mean it doesn’t have consequences offline. That’s all for this week! I’ll see you all next week.

-Josh
Internet Beacon

Internet Marketing
Baltimore SEO
Maryland SEO

Browser Maintenance: Out with the Old...

2010-01-15T12:11:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone! It’s Josh from the Internet Beacon, again. This week I want to talk about basic browser maintenance. There are a lot of programs out there that claim they can solve all your Internet woes, but in reality, many of them (usually the cheap ones or the ones advertised on shadier websites) really just automate things you can do on your own. And before you panic, this is some really simple stuff!

A great way to get your internet browser of choice to speed up a little is to clear out some various files that it keeps on hand. Things like Cookies (which you cannot eat) and Cache are two things that really tend to build up over time. They are just files that accumulate over time. They aren’t inherently dangerous or anything, but can clutter up your browser quickly. A quick warning: After doing this, sites that save your login information, for example Facebook or Hotmail, will ask you to log in again. Make sure you know your passwords before you do this! Otherwise, you have to go through the whole “lost password” thing; and no one wants to do that.

According to statistics, most people use Internet Explorer. And so, we’ll go through how to clear these items in the latest version, Internet Explorer 8. First, open Internet Explorer. Next, click on “Tools” located on the bar at the top of the window and select “Internet Options”. Once in “Internet Options”, on the “General” tab, you should see a segment called “Browsing History”. Underneath there is a button labeled Delete. Click it. Don’t worry; you haven’t gotten rid of anything yet.

Now that you have the Delete window open, you have a lot of options and checkboxes. There may be several options checked already. The only ones you want to check are “Temporary Internet Files” and “Cookies”. A little window will pop up letting you know Windows’ progress completing your task. If you’ve never done this before, it may take a while. It should close automatically after it finishes. Then you can close the “Internet Options” window and restart Internet Explorer.

You may now notice an increase in Internet Explorer’s performance. The results will vary depending on how often you perform this maintenance and how cluttered it was before. I recommend doing this about once every two weeks just to keep Internet Explorer running smoothly. That’s all for now, folks. Be sure to check back every week for a new article!

-Josh

Baltimore SEO

Maryland SEO

Internet Beacon

Web Tips: Know Your Scripts

2010-01-08T11:42:00.001-05:00

Hey all, Josh here from the Internet Beacon. We're a Search Engine Optimization firm in Baltimore, Maryland. Today I’d like to share some a helpful Mozilla Firefox addon that I think will make your web surfing experience a little better. For those of you who are used to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Apple’s Safari, an add-on does exactly what it sounds like, it adds to your browsing experience.

Today, I’d like to talk about NoScript. NoScript acts like a switch that allows or disallows Javascript to run on certain pages. This sounds like a great idea for security right off the bat. This is largely true. However, I would caution novice users to do a little research before implementing this add-on. Javascript is running on almost every webpage you visit and with it disabled, they will look very strange at first. Even after you allow certain sites and not others, they may still look strange. This is to be expected.

After following the link above and telling Firefox to install the add-on, your browser will need to be restarted. Go ahead and do this. Once Firefox restarts, you will now see a little blue “S” logo with a red “No” sign over it. This is the NoScript logo. It is informing you that it is now blocking scripts. This is in addition to the message you notice across the bottom about how many scripts it is blocking. Now you can choose which websites to trust to run Javascript in your browser by clicking on it.

The best advice I can give here is to carefully look at the list of sites running scripts through your current site. Obviously you trust the site you visited (if you don’t, stop going there!) so that one is probably safe. Again, that is your call. I can’t say for sure that certain sites are 100% safe and others aren’t.

Once you have set up the filters the way you want, try out a couple of sites. Make sure that things like logging in still work after you've blocked some sites. If they don't, you may have to just allow all scripts to run on that page for the time being. This is also an option on the menu.

That's all for now! I encourage you to check out NoScript at their website, www.NoScript.net, to learn more.

-Josh

Baltimore SEO
Maryland SEO

InternetBeacon

CSS sheet – Spacing after Header Tag

2010-01-05T16:41:00.001-05:00

Have you ever had trouble with spacing around Header tags?
I sure have.

I finally realized that my CSS sheet settings could fix this.
As with any HTML tags, just mention the tag in your CSS sheet and settings:
h1,h2,h3,h4 {
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
vertical-align:top;
}

And that was my fix to remove space after a header.
As with any CSS entry we can also speak to the Header’s font in the style sheet.

h1,h2,h3,h4 {
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
vertical-align:top;
font-family: arial; font-size: 14pt; text-transform: none; color: #000066;
}

Sean K.
Providing Internet Marketing and SEO in Baltimore
Providing Internet Marketing and SEO in Maryland
www.internetbeacon.com

SEO in Baltimore Maryland

2010-01-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

We are try’in to give this here modern confangled bloggin stuff a whirl.

Seriously, though we are trying to engage this process and hopefully provide some meaningful content to the WWW.

Sean
Internet Beacon
Providing Internet Marketing and SEO in Baltimore
Providing Internet Marketing and SEO in Maryland
www.internetbeacon.com

Why not Develop a Marketing Plan for 2010?

2009-12-07T03:37:00.002-05:00

Develop a what? A marketing plan.

But we only have 3 employees.

Whether we have annual gross revenue of 100 thousand or 100 million dollars a marketing plan can help us reach the customers that we want to reach.

Here are 3 simple reasons why:

1. A Marketing Plan Summarizes The Various Marketing Ideas We Have Thought Of

Compiling our ideas together in a document will make our ideas real.

Additionally, we are not taking any action yet, just compiling the marketing ideas, assigning a dollar cost for budget purposes, and a due date.

For an over simplified example:

Goal	Task
Gain 2 additional local customers	Mail 100 postcards locally

Budget	Due Date
$25	February 1, 2010

2. Hang a Marketing Plan Summary over Our Desk

Reminders are great, especially a reminder to get moving on the tasks we outlined in our marketing plan

So upon completion of our marketing plan, we can summarize our tasks, assign due dates and hang it over our desk (or just the tasks section or media plan section). If you are like me, move it once in a while so it does not blend in with the scenery.

Additionally, when a new idea occurs we can add it to the marketing plan.

3. A Marketing Plan Can Break Down Large Tasks into Smaller Less Scary Tasks

I remember a boss many years ago explaining that you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Our marketing plans can work similarly. Our marketing plan among other things hopefully breaks down those large tasks into smaller more manageable tasks.

For example, the post card idea mentioned earlier. The large task can be broken into at least 9 smaller tasks and can be completed in one day or over several days.

Mailing 100 Post cards to potential customers

Develop a catchy idea for our post card
Sketch out the idea on paper and locate some image metaphors
Develop the post card personally or by a designer
Gather 100 leads in a spreadsheet (or export 100 leads from CRM software)
Merge the leads into mailing labels
Print the mailing labels
Add the mailing labels to our postcards
Add postage (online postage at USPS.com)
Deliver to the local Post Office (http://www.usps.com/locator)

More information at the Small Business Administration - www.SBA.gov:

http://web.sba.gov/busplantemplate/MarketStrat.cfm

http://www.sbajumpstart.com/index.cfm?page=marketingplans.cfm

Please do not forget Internet Marketing in your Marketing plan and please think of us at the InternetBeacon.com for your Internet marketing needs.

Sean
InternetBeacon.com
Internet Marketing and SEO in Baltimore

A really Quick look at Google PageRank

2009-11-02T22:03:00.000-05:00

I did some really quick investigation into Google PageRank or PR.

A rating is assigned to your website based on a lot of factors. Google mentions 500 million variables and 2 billion terms http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html.

Google also mentions on the same web page: “PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A,
for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”(http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html)

Ratings:

0 to 2 = Below Average

3 to 5 = Average example: www.captainharveys.com

6 to 7 = Above Average example: www.baltimoresun.com

8 to 10 = Elite example: www.baltimoreravens.com

If you are not aware there is a simple Firefox plugin called WebRank Toolbar (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/52177) which seems pretty cool. Every website you visit is given a Google page rank rating instantly when you visit it.

Additionally, Alexa, Compete, Quantcast rankings are listed with the number of links in Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Sean K.

Providing Internet Marketing and SEO in Baltimore
Providing Internet Marketing and SEO in Maryland
www.internetbeacon.com

CSS sheet – Spacing after Header Tag

2009-10-09T08:16:00.000-04:00

Have you ever had trouble with spacing around Header tags?

I sure have.

I finally realized that my CSS sheet settings could fix this.

As with any HTML tags, just mention the tag in your CSS sheet and settings:

h1,h2,h3,h4 {
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
vertical-align:top;
}

And that was my fix to remove space after a header.

As with any CSS entry we can also speak to the Header’s font in the style sheet.

h1,h2,h3,h4 {
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
vertical-align:top;
font-family: arial; font-size: 14pt; text-transform: none; color: #000066;
}

Sean
www.internetbeacon.com
Internet Marketing and SEO in Baltimore

SEO in Baltimore Maryland

2009-09-04T05:14:00.000-04:00