How To Turn Your Online Business Into a Community April 28, 2011 | Posted in Guest Blogs by SBIers | Leave a Comment

Guest Blogs by SBIers

By Rena Klingenberg from jewelrybusinesstips.com

A few years ago I came across two words that changed my view of my online business....

At the time, I was reading my visitors' feedback at the end of an article on one of my websites. One of the comments mentioned "Rena's community." What? I had a community? When did that happen?

Suddenly my entire perception of my websites shifted. I didn't have just subscribers, visitors, and commenters. Instead, I had a true community... people who were the heart and soul of my online business... folks who...

• subscribe to my newsletter and RSS feeds
• visit my sites regularly
• read nearly everything I publish
• post comments on my individual web pages
• submit their content and photos to my sites
• purchase my info-products
• link to and promote my websites
• interact with each other on my website pages.

Over the years, these people have indeed become a lovely community of kindred spirits revolving around my websites.

As soon as I grasped this new vision of "community," I began to revamp all of my sites into better social gathering places where people in my niche come to share, learn, connect, and inspire each other. You can do the same...

It's Time To Raise Your Game! April 25, 2011 | Posted in E-Business Tips | Leave a Comment

E-Business Tips

Speculating about Google's Panda algorithm change that Ken posted about back in February and its global rollout this month is pointless. Most folks, just like after most Google dances, are doing fine. (For example, total traffic across all SBI! sites is up, a testimonial to the overall quality and success of SBI! sites.)

However, for those sites that did experience a substantial traffic drop, the hurt is gut-wrenching. The natural reaction is to lash out at Google, to wonder "why me?". Meanwhile, those who are unaffected continue quietly working, oblivious to the controversies and even conspiracy theories swirling around the Web.

Impacted or not, it's time for all to do a detailed self-audit. Ifyour site hasbeen impacted, return to basics -- be very critical of your site.(If you're an SBIer, check off the self-audit steps listed in this TNT HQ article.)

If your site-audit does not uncover any specific causes, it's all the more upsetting. It's important to remember that what seems to be an arbitrary "rejection" by Google is, in fact, a mistake... a "false-positive." This type of error has, historically, righted itself over time as Google constantly moves to improve its algorithm. What to do in the meantime?

The best solution for this type of hurt is to keep moving forward, to focus on doing rather than speculating.

Don't get caught up in trying to over-analyze the situation. You have to keep on working through it until Google's algorithm catches back up to reality...

Pointers for Sourcing Product April 22, 2011 | Posted in Monetization | Leave a Comment

Monetization

Do you want to sell hard goods online? Are you considering an online store as one of your income streams? Either you make the products yourself to sell or you find third party "makers" and sell their goods. The hunt for the latter is known as "sourcing product."

Start your search close by. You may know people who create their own products (artist, designer, pewter maker, sculptor, welder, wood carver, writer, etc.). Do their products fit with your site's theme? Yes? Contact them, and set up a sales agreement. You market and distribute their products, and they pay you an acceptable percentage. This way, no out-of-pocket expenses are required to stock inventory on your part.

When you are sourcing product, all it takes is a little creative "outside the box" thinking to locate an opportunity that "fits" with your e-business. Instead of being a "creator of product" become an "aggregator of products."

Ouch! Page Dropped By Google! April 19, 2011 | Posted in Traffic Generation | Leave a Comment

Traffic Generation

There are many reasons why a page could be dropped from Google. The key for you is to figure out why and whether you should do anything about it. Let's start with these general possibilities...

• Pages have duplicate content. This could be from using an article from an article directory, without reworking and adding lots of original content to the page. Or it could be from affiliate products, where the same wording about the products is found on dozens of other affiliates' pages.

• A site has copied another site's content. That duplicate content may affect the latter's rankings.

• Google doesn't trust the links into the site. They may come from spammy neighborhoods, link farms, or from sites known to sell links.

• Google doesn't trust the links out from the site. These links are going to sites unrelated to the content of the page or site.

• Pages are orphans (pages that have lost all links in to them), or are very far from the home page, with just one link to them, likely from the next higher level. If Google has to do a really deep crawl to find a page, it is more likely to get dropped (if it ever lists it, that is).