How much is a good review worth?

Reviews are helpful.. especially when they're good reviews. But in some cases, they are essential to doing business well. For instance, I was on Amazon.com shopping for printer toner cartridges. Some toner cartridge sets had terrible reviews. This scared me because I realized that the issues I had been having with my printer were due to leaking ink that other people who had written reviews had experienced. So I was specifically looking for toner cartridges with good reviews. I found one et of toner cartridges for sale had a ton of good reviews at a fairly cheap price.

I bought the toner cartridges and when I received the package, I got a coupon that told me that if I wrote a review on the product, that they would send me a $10 Amazon gift card. I immediately thought "cool, I can get $10 free" but then I thought, "wait what's the catch?" I quickly realized that all the reviews were written by people who received the coupon for the free gift card and immediately went online and wrote a good review before even knowing whether the ink was good or not.

Why do I know this? Because that's what I was about to do! Because why would you wait to write a review if you know you can get a $10 gift card now, and of course why would you give up your chance of possibly not getting the $10 gift card by writing a bad review? Very smart marketing technique I have to say. Makes you think how much does it cost to sway people to buy your product instead of someone else's by making sure that you get a ton of good reviews? Maybe only $10, maybe only $5, maybe less… people love free money so it's a great incentive to them. You can always add that extra into the sales price because having the good reviews will put you ahead of the competition with cheaper prices and bad reviews. This is great for products that have a lot of competition or products that people may be unsure of the quality when purchasing online.

SEO for better google web ranking

A lot of people have been asking me how they can make their website more visible online. If you own a website, and especially if you have advertised with Google Ads, you probably have already been bombarded with emails coming from SEO companies trying to get your business. The problem is that some (actually many) don't really do much and just take your money. Some even want yearly contracts that you get locked into before you even see results. This makes it difficult to figure out who is real. And the problem with google ads is that many times, the clicks are getting used by these crappy SEO companies who click on your paid link and email you just to sell you SEO services. I'm not sure when or how google is going to find a way to stop them from doing this, but it's definitely a problem.

So here are some suggestions for you to figure out who you can use to do your SEO:

1. Don't use a company that wants more than a one month at a time contract. SEO is usually done monthly, so it's necessary to pay by the month but don't get locked into a yearly contract without seeing results.

2. If you have a small business who is advertising mostly locally, the average rate is $300 per month. Much more and you might be getting ripped off, much less and your might be getting ripped off.

3. Use a company who has a portfolio of previous clients and a website. Why wouldn't they have their own website? And you don't want to use them if they are new at it.

4. Use a company who is a small business and doesn't have sales people who don't actually do any SEO. This is just an extra expense and this probably means that the customer service will disappear later.

5. You're going to be stuck with this company for a while possible, so choose wisely. It takes several months for SEO to even start working- up to 6-9 months possibly so you want to make sure they're good because you can't change SEO companies each month.

6. Don't use a company that says they can get your keywords to the top of google in a month, they are probably using some black SEO techniques that will get you penalized by google.

And finally, my long sought out recommendation for SEO services:
www.sitesmartmarketing.com
Their SEO packages start at $300/ month and are very friendly and knowledgable about SEO and online marketing and will help your business achieve it's SEO goals. Call them at 702-666-8875 and tell them that Megan referred you. :)

Keep talking... you're making me famous

You know the saying... keep talking shit, you're making me famous? Well it's actually true in a very distinctive way on facebook. When you post a message on facebook, and someone likes you post or comments, it actually boosts your post so that more people can see it. So not matter what someone said about your post, good or bad... it gets seen more. So if you don't like what someone said or did, don't comment because your only helping their post get seen in the long run. On the other hand, if you do want to boost your friends post, like and comment on it so it gets seen more.

All those celebrities out there know that any publicity, good or bad is good publicity. Every scandal, every picture in a magazine... it all helps them letting you know who they are. When no one is talking, no one cares. It's a good thing to keep in mind next time someone writes something rude about you online. Keep talking... you're making me famous!

You can now schedule a post on Facebook

Now you can schedule a post on your facebook page. Scheduling posts is great because you can schedule posts for your business page for your entire week or month without having to remember that you have to post again every few days. There are also several other websites that let you schedule posts like www.hootsuite.com A lot of blog websites like blogger let you schedule your blog posts also so that it automatically posts them at a later date. This is also great for when your going out of town but you want to keep up on your posts without having to jump on the computer while on vacation.  Here is some more information about how you can schedule posts to appear on facebook at a later date:

You can prepare a post and schedule it to appear later by adding a date and time in the future before you post it. You can schedule a post up to 6 months in advance in 15-minute intervals. 

From your Page's sharing tool:

1. Choose the type of post you want to add to your Page
2. Click the  icon in the lower-left of the sharing tool
3. Choose the future year, month, day, hour and minute when you'd like your post to appear
4. Click Schedule

If you choose a date in the past, the post will appear immediately at the appropriate place on your Page's timeline. All times correspond to the current time zone you're in.

Click here to go to the facebook forum page about this

Survival in the computer generation

With every new computer related or online marketing skill I learn, I wonder... how does anyone survival with minimal computer knowledge? There is a whole generation of kids growing up using ipads at age 2. How can anyone expect to not become obsolete without advanced computer knowledge anymore? It seems like the order generation that did not learn to use a computer until later in life is either learning from their younger employees or having them do the computer skill jobs while they manage people the old fashioned way. If you're at the bottom of the latter with minimal computer knowledge, I'd watch my back if I were you. Unless you are able to manage someone with more skills than you, you are likely to fall behind fast.

It's true that you can't learn it all. That's why you generally have to eventually hire someone to help you do something that you don't have the time to learn yourself. But the truth is that you should always be looking to stay ahead of the rest and keep up on the latest and greatest technology just to keep up. 

I'm surprised where my career has lead me. I'm doing things now that no one had any clue about even teaching back when I was in college 8 years ago. A lot of what I learned in college is obsolete to a certain degree. I can't imagine where I'd be now if I haven't kept learning on my own. It's really never ending. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying college wasn't useful because it was a huge step into developing this learning process. Some of what I learned was from being around other people who taught me things I would have never learned if I hadn't been put in that situation among many other people who had a passion for learning. I do miss that about college actually. But alas, I spent my time there, moved on and now I've learned how to learn on my own through reaching online, reading marketing books, and real work experience. 

I help you get more Facebook fans NOW!

Hey fellow business owners, I'm doing a giveaway contest on Facebook that you can be a part of!

I'm giving away a $49 "My Accessory Business" Jewelry Sales Kit from www.MyAccessoryBusiness.com. The "My Accessory Business" fan page has 3000 fans and I want to help you get tons and tons of fans too! Plus my personal page has over 1200 other friends and 2 other business pages with 300 different fans. I'm looking for other businesses to join my giveaway that will be broadcast to over 4500 TOTAL Facebook users. Here's how it works:

- 4500 Fans from my 3K fan page, friends page, and 2 other business pages want to enter my contest to win a $49 sales kit
- They go to the contest page and they get one entry for each business page that they "LIKE"
- Most people will like every page in the contest to get a better chance of winning the prize
- I entered my business page in a similar contest and got tons of new "LIKES"
- Getting new fans increases your chance for getting your message out to more people to promote your business
- Even if the fans you get don't have interest in your business or are not located in the area your business is located, the more fans you get, the more popular and therefore trustworthy your business will look online.

Here's how you can be a part of my giveaway:

OPTION #1: Your business page listed on my giveaway as an option to "like" your page for 1+ entry in the contest- costs only $5

OPTION #2: Your business page listed on my giveaway as a mandatory option to "like" your page for 1+ entry in the contest & they MUST click "Like" on your page in order to enter the contest- costs only $10

OPTION #3: If you have more than one business page you want to enter, you can have BOTH listed on the giveaway- costs only $8

For your business to be part of the giveaway:
- Send correct payment through www.paypal.com to liquidreddesign@gmail.com
- Mention which option you are choosing
- In the message box, write in the Facebook URL for your Facebook business page

Be sure to enter your business now and try it out, the cost of entering your business in this type of giveaway may increase at a later date.

The contest starts on May 1st, 2012 and goes until May 15th, 2012 (2 weeks!). You may send your payment for this at any time from now until the end of the contest but the earlier your business is entered, the more fans you will get, so enter your business page now!

If you have any questions, you can email "myaccessorybusiness AT gmail.com" or message me on Facebook.

-Megan