Ever since Twitter unveiled it advertising model in April this year, internet marketers have been outdoing themselves in trying to make the best of the social networking site. With just four months past, it’s quite hard to be categorical on the effectiveness of the new model. It is not easy to tell how promoted tweets will compare to the down and dirty “tweets” that are no more social than an insurance sales pitch in a wedding party.

How It Works

The company has started on a small scale.  The model involves buying keywords and then paying for them depending on the popularity of the keyword. Promoted tweets will then show up on the search results at Twitter.com. For example, if one goes to the Twitter search box and types “cars in Dubai,” he’ll receive results, with some of the results being “promoted” – just like what happens with search results from search engines.

Twitter seems to be pretty cautious and it is as if they really don’t want to be too intrusive to the extent of putting off Twitter users.  They are experimenting with this model with a few companies that include Starbucks, Best Buy and JetBlue all of which, by all definitions, are companies with deep customer loyalty.

Apart from the search feature, there is another model that was launched in early July. This dealt with the creation of an account referred to as @earlybird, which is about updating followers about the latest advertised promotions available. Twitter users then can choose to follow – and unfollow – @earlybird just as they would with any other user.

As already mentioned, plenty of current “marketing” tweets can be described as offensive at worst and ineffective at best.  This method of cranking out as many tweets as possible hoping that someone was reading them was more like trying to sell stuff by presenting a hard sales pitch in a social gathering.

The new model on the other hand can be compared to a decent shopping mall in a social park where you choose to buy, and not a the case of an insurance salesman following your tail with the  single aim of selling you an insurance product you do not want. As you might know, people hate being sold to.

How To Do It

As of now, guys like you and I don’t stand a chance of using the new platform designed by Twitter. Twitter has limited the service to a number of select users since they are a bit cautious and are still trying to learn the advertising trade.

However, if you would like to try out this service then you need to be warming up by trying organic tweets to see how they will work.

The first thing that you need to do – and which you probably know – is to sign up for a free Twitter account at their home page at Twitter.com. It is always advisable that you use the name that will best identify your business. Since Twitter target the business community and not spammers, they have expressly banned name squatting. This means that if someone has registered your business name in the Twitter account, you only need to contact Twitter to have this sorted out.

Once you have signed up with your name, the next step you will need to take is filing up your account details. You are given a space of 160 characters to briefly describe your business. This will ensure that people will know exactly who you are and what you do when they land on your profile page.

Since Twitter is till trying to understand how it will be able to monetize its site, you have to do it the old way. This means trying to see who the best people to follow are; do not make the mistake of trying to follow everybody. It won’t help you if at all you are following 13-year olds with a view to selling them cars.

The fourth step in establishing a rewarding Twitter campaign involves the writing of relevant ads.
This does not mean writing the crap that advertisers have been writing before. You need to take the transition phase as a period of learning which ads work best on Twitter. If you do it well, you’ll be able to boast, like coke has done, of “phenomenal” results just 24 hours after starting the advertisement.

Another point as we close: if you were planning to dodge the new “promoted tweets” in the hope of spending your money with third party applications that advertise through Twitter, forget it. Twitter has banned all advertisements from third party apps with a view to increasing the focus on its promoted tweets and @earlybird.

As already indicated above, the advertising platform designed by Twitter is still new and very little can be said of the results. All you need to do however is to sharpen your sword so that when the doors will be opened to the rest of us, you will not be at a disadvantage.

About Us
At  Salony Creations – Web Design and Development – a Dubai based company,  we offer services that will help you manage your marketing campaigns on Facebook and other social networking sites such as Myspace and Twitter. Our Specialists will work on your account on a daily basis, educating your fans about your services and products, while at the same time responding to any of concerns that they might be having about using your products or services.
Next week, I’ll be giving you “Five reasons why your email marketing campaign is a flop”

For a free, No-obligation meeting, call us on +971-50-5388406; you will receive answers for any questions that you might be having regarding internet marketing and web design. You can also send us an email at namita@new-reach.com for the same.
We treasure feedback from our readers. As a way of appreciating your feedback, we shall be rewarding any person whose question shall be the heading of our next blog; free web hosting services on  Dubai based Web hosting company Salonyservers.com or free credit to market your product to up to 250 email recipients through our first-rate email marketing software, Quick Email Marketing.com, are up for grabs.

Until next time, have a great and successful week and Ramadan Kareem to you all.

For some time now, we have been talking about internet marketing strategies that you can use to target businesses and individuals, regardless of the product you are selling. This time, I want to focus on choosing the social networking platform that will suit your business. This is in response to the question: between Facebook and Twitter, which one is good for MY business?

I have capitalized the MY word because despite the fact that both social advertising platforms can be used for business, the success of each one of them will depend on the type of business that you run.

But before you think of how you can apply them in your business, it is important to first understand how each one of them works.

Facebook

Facebook Vs Twitter

From previous newsletters that I have sent you, you probably know much about Facebook already. There are three ways to get your message across through Facebook: Facebook groups, Facebook pages, and Facebook ads.

Facebook pages and Facebook groups are considered as non-official advertising methods and they are possible with a $0 budget. Running campaigns through this method requires sweat, and (sometimes,) a couple of applications.  I discussed this is another blog, Facebook Pages vs. Facebook Groups: Which Way to Go?

Facebook Ads on the other hand, requires money. It’s the official advertising platform on Facebook and allows you to create ads and then pay for them either per click, or per one thousand impressions.

Twitter

Twitter on the other hand, is a social networking site similar to Facebook, but whose popularity is mainly in North American countries.
Previously, most of the advertising done on twitter was unofficial. It involved getting people to follow you and then bombarding them with tweets (a maximum of 170 characters of updates.) Unfortunately as people got to know more and more about making money through twitter, no one listened to the other. Everyone was thinking of how to monetize their accounts.

As a result, Twitter.com has come up with a new way to monetize, through “sponsored tweets.” It works in such a way that you go out to search for the most relevant keywords that you would like to target. Then, twitter will classify its users based on what they normally tweet about.

Based on this, twitter will then send them sponsored tweets which are paid for by the advertisers. This is a rather new model that was announced in April of this year and a lot remains to be seen.

Does Your Product Fit?

Now that you understand how each one of the two platforms work, it is now time to see how your product fits in the social marketing arena.

Does your product have any value?

A lot of people tend to think that there is always someone stupid out there who is willing to buy whatever they will be selling so long as it’s advertised online.  Make sure that whatever you sell can be advertised and sold offline. To know whether a product has value, ask yourself whether that product would have helped you if you were in the same circumstance as your target client.

Is the product the laid-back type or is it the technical and academic type?

If your product is the laid back type, it can be sold through both Facebook and twitter. On the other hand if it is the academic type, know that it cannot sell on Facebook. It’s that simple. The product can sell on twitter because techies have a passion for their stuff and can be very thrilled when they hear that a new product is coming up. It cannot be sold on Facebook because people on Facebook do not actively seek information when viewing their updates.

For technical and academic products to sell, you must target the buyers who are actively seeking for a solution to their problem.

Do people have a preconceived notion of what the price should be?

Well, if your product has many competitors who have in some way set the price for the product you are selling, it is advisable that you go out with Facebook instead of twitter. This is because with Facebook, any dissatisfaction with the product or price can be borne by one person. On the other hand, if a buyer feels that your prices are too high or that there are better products than yours, he can easily “re-tweet” his concerns causing you a lot of negative publicity.

If you want to be successful in social marketing, you need to tailor your message to suit the product. Remember that these social marketing platforms were not designed for business. And just as a Facebook update is not the same as a tweet, a Facebook ad should NOT be used in twitter ad.

About Us

At Salony Creations, we offer services that will help you manage your marketing campaigns on Facebook and other social networking sites such as Myspace and Twitter. Our Specialists will work on your account on a daily basis, educating your fans about your services and products, while at the same time responding to any of concerns that they might be having about using your products or services.

In August, we shall be answering the question, “How effective is Twitter’s new advertising platform?”

For a free, No-obligation meeting, call us on +971-50-5388406; you will receive answers for any questions that you might be having regarding internet marketing and web design. You can also send us an email at namita@new-reach.com for the same.

We treasure feedback from our subscribers. As a way of appreciating your feedback, we shall be rewarding any person whose question shall be the heading of our next blog; free web hosting services on Salonyservers.com or free credit to market your product to up to 250 email recipients through our first-rate email marketing software, Quick Email Marketing.com, are up for grabs.

Until then,
Have a great holiday – Its summer…I am sure most of you guys must be on holiday!

One thing that I have learnt about internet marketing is to take seriously the phrase that says, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

That’s why I am going to bore you again with Facebook. It is something that anyone who wants to get more sales from advertising must pay attention to.

Let me explain why:

For those of you who do not know, Google powered Yahoo! Search until 2004. At that time, internet advertising was mainly done through Overture, another one of Yahoo’s subsidiaries.

Things changed along the way and Yahoo is currently the underdog.

And history is repeating itself; this time, it is Facebook Ads vs. Google AdWords.

That’s why I’ll touching on another question about Facebook today:

“How can I run effective paid ads on Facebook without ruining my budget?”

In our last newsletter, we talked about Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups, and discussed which one is best for business. Both tools are designed to build virtual communities that help create greater brand loyalty. However, they don’t really serve the immediate goals of many businesses, which is to increase sales in the short term.

Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads is the Facebook equivalent of Google AdWords. Here, you choose to pay per click (PPC) or pay per impression (PPI). The minimum daily rates will vary depending on your location.

For you to succeed in Facebook, you need to have a different mindset than the one you should have when advertising through Google AdWords. This is because the person searching on Google or reading web content is actively looking for information that is relevant to what you are offering.

On the other hand, the average Facebook user is not looking for information. Whether it is a 30-year-old executive stealing company time or a 12-year-old kid, chances are high that he or she is probably bored and is looking for a distraction. That is why you can’t just throw your money at Facebook; You may end up with a 50% click-through-rate with 0% conversion rates.

So, how do you go about it?

TIP 1: Research your market

In developing your product, you should have already known what kind of people you are targeting. If you are not sure who to target with your Facebook ads, establish a Facebook page, or better still, try to understand the demographics of the people who are visiting your competitor’s pages. The good thing about facebook ads is that you are able to target your clients based on ages.

TIP 2: Set a specific goal

Another step towards running effective social ads is to decide what you would like to achieve in the short term.

Do you want them to join a social cause you are championing? Do you want them to join your mailing list? Or do you just want them to visit your website and see the various products that are on display?

TIP 3: Use people’s pictures

Many people use company logos on Facebook without realizing that Facebook is a social networking site where people relate with people. If you want to have better C.T.R., use pictures of real people rather than those of a product or company. Make sure that they look like profile pictures. This will definitely attract more clicks.

TIP 4: Write great text

Make an ad that would interest the right audience and let them click on it. Apart from mentioning the keywords that may be of interest to your audience, ensure that you have less text on the ad so that someone can read the whole ad without losing attention.

TIP 5: Design a great landing page

Never let your Facebook visitor get lost in a maze of what you are offering. As I said earlier, the Facebook user is not actively seeking for information. In fact, he is probably distracted and any inconveniences that you set on his path can easily cause him to continue doing something more meaningful.

Whether you want him to land on your homepage or your Facebook page, you must make it extremely easy for him to navigate through the whole process or you will lose him.

My Take

Although the income that Facebook receives from advertising is nothing compared to that which Google receives, I think that Facebook offers a great opportunity to internet marketers who are on a tight budget.

About Us

At Salony Creations, we offer services that will help you manage your marketing campaigns on Facebook and other social networking sites such as Myspace and Twitter. Our Specialists will work on your account on a daily basis, educating your fans about your services and products, while at the same time responding to any of concerns that they might be having about using your products or services.

In our next post we would be looking at question: What is the difference between facebook pages and groups and what’s best for you to market your business?

For a free, No-obligation meeting, call us on +971-50-5388406 ,  you will receive answers for any questions that you might be having regarding internet marketing and web design. You can also send us an email at namita@new-reach.com for the same.

If any of your questions becomes the subject of our newsletter, we will let you choose between free web hosting services on Salonyservers.com or free credit to market your product to up to 250 email recipients through our first-rate email marketing software: Quick Email Marketing.com

I have received a lot of questions regarding twitter. Many of my clients have wanted to know what twitter is and how they can benefit from it.

Well, simply put, Twitter is a social networking website. It is like a mega chat room where people “follow” each other and talk about anything under the sun. If you have a twitter account, you are limited to telling others about what you are doing with 140 characters. It’s more or less like a text message.

Twitter’s greatest help to you is the fact that it can make your marketing efforts to reap heavily. It is normally used in generating traffic for your website.

Talk to any internet marketer and he will tell you that internet traffic is one of the most important things in internet marketing. It is a treasure that millions of competitors are spending days and nights looking for ways to get more of.

Why?

Because more Traffic = more sales = more money.

Twitter will help you a great deal, in that it provides you with an opportunity to tell the people that you relate to about your website. This is something that would have otherwise cost you a lot of money were you to pay for the advertisement to reach your target audience.

In addition, twitter can also assist you to promote your events, build solid relationships with your customers and provide a platform for learning new things in your industry.

However, twitter is not a magic pill that you will swallow and get instant results. It is not just about creating an account on twitter and waiting to see money flowing in like a torrent. No. It requires hard work, focus and patience; with these, you will no doubt reap the benefits.

Doing it right, will separate you from countless internet marketers who are struggling to gain greater traffic through twitter. Here are a few tips that will help increase your twitter productivity:

Be worth Following

Provide information that people would love. People hate being sold to – being seen as an ATM that one can withdraw money from. Therefore, for you to gain the trust of your potential customers among twitter users, provide them with information that they need – for free. Then after a while or several posts, provide your link to the product that you are selling.

Take some time to read other people’s posts

Many people are running through the web trying to sell there stuff and shouting at each other, so that some people do not read each other’s posts. Just as many people try to sell through twitter, countless others are trying to buy stuff through twitter. Unfortunately, since many people are so concerned about selling their stuff, few people bother to listen to those who are trying to buy things. To get better results through twitter, read what the people you are following have to say. You may be surprised to find that someone is looking for the services that you are offering and nobody is listening to him.

Build relationships

Twitter is a social networking site and your approach to it should be simply that: social. It’s like a party where you go and connect and talk with each other about all topics; some of these include what and what not to buy. Try to respond to comments by your loyal followers and those that you take to be part of your target market. This way, you are building a relationship with someone who will buy a lot of stuff from you.

Classify your groups

There are many applications that can help you classify your twitter contacts in the form of loyal followers, family, friends, and so forth. Classifying your contacts in twitter will help you separate business from friends and families. It will also help you know which followers are worth spending your time on and which followers are bent on selling stuff to you.

Like any other thing, if marketing through twitter is not done the right way, you will lose a lot of money and energy while gaining absolutely nothing. The greatest reward in using twitter come from the proper use of the techniques outlined above.

At Salony Creations, we specialize in writing for twitter where we deliver content in a friendly but professional tone. We make sure that we avoid the common mistakes that can easily make your campaign flop.

We also provide monthly services of managing your twitter accounts whereby our specialists work on your account on a daily basis, educating your followers about your services and products. This helps them to participate in your discussions, thus increasing your fan base by combining twitter with other media like Facebook and Myspace.

In our next newsletter, we will deal with another must-have tool of social marketing: Facebook. We shall be answering the question, “what can I do to reap the most from Facebook?”

For a free, No-obligation meeting, call us on +971-50-5388406. You will receive answers for any questions that you might be having regarding internet marketing and web design. You can also send us an email at namita@new-reach.com for the same.

If any of your questions becomes the subject of our newsletter, you will receive a free gift where you will choose between web hosting services on Salonyservers.com or free credit to market your product to up to 250 email recipients through our first-rate email marketing software: Quick Email Marketing.com

I often get a lot of questions from clients who when they call, the first thing they want to know is how we can get their sites to be No. 1 on Google.

It’s funny though because, many of these people do not even have a website in the first place! If you really don’t have a website yet and are wondering about the pricing, I suggest you read our 1st issue, which addresses the question, how much should a website cost?

Coming back to becoming No. 1 on Google, there are two ways to getting to the top of Google:

Paying a lot of money for the top spot of sponsored search results. These are the results that appear at the very top of search engines or at the right side of search results. This depends on how much you are willing to pay Google for that spot. This is called Search Engine Marketing or SEM. We recommend SEM if quick results is what you are looking for. This can be when you have an event or a product launch.

On the other hand, we have organic rankings which come as a careful optimization of the website design and content. This is what is generally referred to as Search Engine Optimization or SEO. And this is what we shall focus on today’s newsletter. Also this is what you shall be doing, to get value leads who will be surely interested in your products / services.

There is so much information on the internet about how to achieve No. 1 Spot that it can sometimes turn out to be a bit confusing. To get the best information, you may have to go through a lot of half-truths and whole lies and still come up with nothing to show for all your hard work.

However, if you want to succeed with SEO, you need to keep to the fundamentals before you try out any new tricks. Here are three tips to keep in mind:

STEP 1: Identify your keywords.

When you want potential customers to find you through search engines, you have to know which words they will use to look for your content. These specific words and phrases are what are referred to as keywords. This phase is called keyword analysis. So we identify the keywords your website should be ranked and check the competition on the same.

At Salony Creations, we go beyond stuffing popular keywords into your content. We ensure that the keyword that you choose is both popular and practical. Let’s assume that you own a printing press and you have a choice betweens two keywords: “Printing services” and “Printing services Dubai”

To get the former keyword on top listings on Google will be both difficult and expensive as it has global approach. However if you are a printing company based in Dubai, getting good listings for the later keyword will be much more achievable and cheaper. This is called geographical listings.

STEP 2: Keyword density and keyword relevance

Once we have chosen the keywords that are the best for your site, we go to the next step to ensure that your content correctly blends with your keywords. This means that the keywords are relevant to your content. Search engines can easily penalize you if all you have done is keyword stuffing: inserting popular keywords in the midst of totally unrelated content.

Keyword density on the other hand refers to the number of times that a keyword appears in the body of the article. We ensure that we the keyword density is high enough to increase the search rankings but not too high to cause your site to be blacklisted. It can be a delicate balance to those who are not trained in it.

STEP 3: Creating Links

Steps one and two generally refer to on-page SEO tactics, because they deal with the content in the page. Search engines like Google will also rank pages based on what others say about your website, and the only way they can do this is by linking to your pages.

At Salony Creations, we show you how to get quality links in an inexpensive way.

These three things are not all that you need to know about SEO. However, they form a very good foundation for all those who would like to expand their SEO efforts.

For a free, no-obligation meeting, call us on +971-50-5388406. You will receive answers for any questions that you might be having regarding internet marketing and web design. You can also send me an email at namita@new-reach.com for the same.

If any of your questions becomes the subject of our newsletter, you will receive a free gift where you can choose between web hosting services on Salonyservers.com or free credit to market your product to up to 250 email recipients through our first-rate email marketing software: Quick Email Marketing.com

Considering the many questions that have come from many of you asking, “What is twitter and how can I benefit from it?” I will be dealing with social media marketing in our next issue.

And by the way, It’s that time again. No, not the holidays — beyond that.
Time to start planning for 2010 — if you haven’t already.

Myself and my team at Salony Creations, would like to wish you a very happy and prosperous new year.

The second most common question I hear from clients is, “how long will it take to build my website?”

Well, answering this question is not simple.

Just as building a multistory complex will take more time compared to building a one bed-roomed house, the time needed to build a website will depend on the overall complexity of the project. This may range from a few days to a couple of months.

Here is the sequence of events:

Phase 1 – A Kickoff meeting

Meetings can be boring. However, this stage is important as it enables us to get the process right the first time. We’ll ask you a couple of questions regarding your goals (why you need a website,) and your target audience.

Getting to know these will help us determine the necessary features required in your website. We get to brainstorm, throw out some ideas, and collect logos, images, and initial web content. Our creative writers then go through the initial content and bring out a piece that is crisp, concise, and free of grammatical errors, with appropriate calls to action. This helps us create a design direction report and web marketing copy.

Step 2 – Design Phase

The design phase is what puts us in your visitors’ shoes. It determines how your visitor will interact with you through your site; how appealing it will be to him, how convenient it will be for him to navigate and what he’ll be able to do while on your site. For the website to fulfill its purpose, we incorporate buttons, forms, and shopping carts, among other features as discussed in the kickoff meeting

It is also at the design phase that we determine the appropriate font and background color which is basically the look and feel of the website.

Here, we might hit the jackpot the first time or it may take a few revisions to get the design perfect. This process normally takes seven to ten days.

Once you have a good feel of the website and you are okay with design, we can then move to the coding phase.

Phase 3 – Coding

Coding is telling the computer what the browser should come up with when someone tries to access your website. It is defined by a series of instructions that determine the look and functionality of the website. The basic coding language for websites is HTML. However, to achieve interactive features like shopping carts or slide shows, we use a programming language called PHP for Linux-based servers, or ASP for Windows-based servers. I will explain these languages and their uses in future newsletters. For now, just know that codes differ in their complexity, and this may affect the length of time required to come up with a working code.

Depending on the simplicity or complexity of the project, the time needed to code the project may range from one week to one month.

Phase 4 – Testing

Once we are through with coding, it is now time to see whether browsers will pick up the instructions, as we want them to. We do this by making validation checks of the codes and as we watch out for broken links, bad graphics, and faulty navigation.

To ensure that your visitor will have the best possible experience, we make sure that your site can properly open with all the available web browsers including Internet explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and many others.

Any errors are corrected; if there is no error, the site is fit for launch having taken 2 – 3 weeks.

It will be inaccurate to claim that this is the mandatory sequence in all cases. The process will vary depending on the type of site which we discussed in our previous newsletter. Some websites will require more phases and more customized coding depending on the required features like the website we did for United Equipment Rentals . They needed a 3 level drop down menu for the product section, an inquiry cart so visitors can add products to inquiry and that comes to them by email to further correspond and a slide show on home page which is auto generated when new products are added in the backend CMS. The entire project took about 6 weeks to complete.

So, I believe that you’ve understood the different phases of website building and their average time length. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, I would love to hear from you; drop me a line at namita@new-reach.com

In our next newsletter, we shall be looking at the question: “Do I need to redesign my website?”

You will always have people who feel that your website is not as good as it should be. To avoid falling into the trap where you always feel that you need to redesign your website, be clear if redoing your website will add value to your business. Only redesign your website if at all it will add value to your firm.

So, how do you know whether redesigning your website will add value to your firm?

Ask yourself these three questions:

How does my website affect my brand?
Your website is a place where you can interact with your visitors and tell them something about your company. From this interaction, the visitor can perceive your brand either negatively or positively.

You can create more value from your website by making it a marketing tool rather than just a one-page resume. By simply removing the wrong pictures, changing the content of the pages, and eliminating awkward taglines, you can greatly improve the way visitors perceive you. This will in turn make them want to do more business with you and hence create value for you.

Does the site perform the required functions?

You probably developed your first website because you thought it was hip. You really didn’t know why you did it except that everyone else was doing it.

Well, smart businesspeople know that that is not the way to do business. Establish the reasons why a business like yours needs a website. If you are a service company, the purpose of your website may be totally different from that of an online store. If you have set up a website to make money from Google Adsense, you will be more concerned about search engine rankings rather than website appearance. On the other hand, if you want your website to sell books online, you will be keener on website navigation rather than search engine optimization.

If the site does not give you the functions that you need, it is time to redesign it so that it adds value to your firm.

Is my site visitor-friendly?

There is nothing that irritates your visitors more than websites that are too hard to navigate. One thing that defines most of you visitors is that while they are at your website, they have most likely opened at least three other websites that are offering products in competition with you, looking for the best deal. Since the visitors wants to close down “bad deals” so that he can concentrate on the “good” ones, he is always ready to close down sites that make his job hard.

If your website is hard to interact with and navigate, the visitor will simply close down your page and go on with those that are easy to use. If your site is not visitor-friendly, that’s your chance to redesign your website.

Well, the great thing about websites is they are always updatable.

You can build your web site as you go, try new ideas, add new content, remove old content, adapt to the changing seasons or to your competitors. Your site should remain inviting, functional, and help you achieve your online business goals.

Whether you need a simple change or a total from-the-ground-up website redesign, Salony Creations is ready to help you meet your goals! Click here to request a free website redesign estimate today.

If you have any questions, talk to us on +971-50-5388406 and we will answer them. You will receive a free no-obligation meeting where you can ask as many questions that you want to, about internet marketing and web design. You can also send us an email at namita@new-reach.com for the same. If any of your questions becomes the subject of our newsletter, you will receive a free gift. Yes, you can choose between web hosting services or free credit to market your product to up to 250 email recipients through our first-rate email marketing software known as Quick Email Marketing..com

Every time I meet a prospect for a website design inquiry or project, the first thing they say is “Namita, I want my site to be No. 1 on Google; what can YOU do?” or Can you get my site to the TOP listings in Google?

In our next issue, “I want to be No. 1 on Google.” I will be telling you what it takes and requires to reach to top listings on Google!

You have decided: yes! You need a website. But there is that tricky question of “how much will it cost?”

Often, when we quote a price, we hear, “But we want a simple website…just three pages. Can’t you give me a better deal please?”

But it’s much more complex than just the number of pages. We must also look at:

• How will you manage the content? How will you add information?
• How will your clients navigate your web site?
• Will your visitors communicate with you through your website?

Answering these questions requires consultation, research and a competitive analysis, to start. And this must be done whether you have 3 pages or 300. Therefore we must charge a minimum fee regardless of the number of pages.

Another element that affects the price is the type of website and what you want to do with your website? There are 3 main types of websites.

1. Static Websites: If all you want is to maintain a simple online presence, then static sites are good for you. These websites are made up of html pages linked together and can range from 5 to 20 pages. The fee can range between AED 3000 to AED 15000. (The exact amount depends on project specifications.) You can check out www.silverairuae.com – one of the many static websites we’ve designed. Need more examples? Visit our website or our facebook page here.

2. Dynamic websites: For more than 20 pages, a dynamic website is best. Two things you will get with dynamic websites that you can’t get with static ones:

• Visitor interactivity – Your visitors can make inquiries or buy stuff, and
• Easier site administration – you can manage content without touching the structure of the site or without coding knowledge.

A good example of a dynamic website is one we did for Arabian Jerusalem , a construction equipment trading company. They wanted a website that would allow visitors to make enquiries and the ability to manage the website content. They also wanted the sales staff to be able to generate online quotations using the same database to quickly convert leads into sales. So we designed a quotation system with the ability to modify product fields and generate instant quotes which can be printed or emailed from any location. With front end user interactivity and backend management features.

Dynamic sites start at AED 15,000. To lower the price, you must limit the dynamic features to few pages/sections. Again “dynamic” is a broad term as blogs, social networking sites, news sites etc are also part of the Dynamic community.

3. Flash websites: If you are looking for something that will evoke emotion and excitement; something that will give your users a great experience rather than just basic information, go with a flash website. You will have an audio and video friendly website with animation effects. Your site will stand out and will be an exciting place to be. Unfortunately you’ll have to forego search engine friendliness since search engines find them difficult to crawl.

A good example of a flash is Land’s End website of Packland a fantasy backpack creator they created to increase engagement with their audience. Its interactive wonderland gives kids an adventuresome way to design the ultimate backpack, appealing to their sense of imagination. At Packland, kids choose from various themes and colors as they build their customized backpacks within worlds of adventure, adding on all sorts of “pack art”—everything from rocket boosters and pirate hooks to tiger tails and butterfly wings.

You want one? Be ready to pay at least AED 20,000.

So what do you think? Which is best for you? If you are still not sure, reply to this message to arrange a free consultation and let us guide you.

Also if you are planning to send an email campaign or a newsletter like this, we can help you here too!

If you have any questions at all, talk to us on +971-50-5388406 and we will answer them.

In our next post, we will address the next logical question, “How long does a website take to make?” which is also the second most common question asked to web developers.

In our last newsletter, we dealt with Twitter and discussed how you can use the social networking site to increase your income.

In this month’s newsletter, I’d like us to look at another common social networking site that’s somewhat different from Twitter: Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site that allows “friends” to contact each other, updating other users of their whereabouts.

So how can you make the best out of facebook for your business?

There are two ways of doing it in Facebook.

The first way to do it is by use of facebook Ads. This means creating ads on Facebook and paying for them. When running an ad on facebook, you can choose to have a pay-per click campaign (just like with Google,) or a pay per impression. In both cases, you are required to spend at least $1 in any single day of advertisement.

The other way to carry out you marketing campaign is to be wholly immersed into the social networking system using Pages and Groups. You need to be like the average facebook user: update your status regularly, make friends, and offer advice among other things. It is the best but, trust me, it’s not the easiest.

It requires that you play your game by the rules or else you’ll spend a lot of energy and get nothing. Worse still, you can end up having your page shut down for violating Facebook terms of use. This will cause you to lose all the contacts that you had developed through the site.

Here are three tips that will see your marketing efforts in Facebook pay off handsomely:

Think people, not numbers

One of the greatest mistakes that internet marketers make is getting into facebook with the intention to sell.

For a millionth time: NOBODY wants to be sold!

Think of it this way: you and some of your high school friends have just met, and while you are reminiscing about the good old days, one of your friends is trying to sell something to you.

How would that make you feel?

Yet, as much as many of us frown on this habit, we still do the same thing when we go around selling our goods to anyone one with facebook profile.

You would have responded with greater enthusiasm if only your friend knew how you were fairing and offered you a solution to your problems. Now, that’s the way to go. Build your profile on Facebook, get friends and fans, be part of them, answer their questions and give them solutions to their problems – by soft selling your product.

Understand your target customer

One of the reasons why people complain of banner-blindness in Facebook is because many advertisers fail to know who their target customer is. For example, it doesn’t make much sense to announce to 18 year olds that you are selling you $500,000 home. Facebook allows you to choose the age that you would like your ads to be displayed to.

Read the guidelines

One of the main reasons why Facebook has attracted a lot of users and advertising revenue is because it strives to maintain a clean site. This means that they have a busy schedule of kicking out “dirty” users. Pray that Facebook does not consider you dirty because it might cost you a critical customer base that you might find hard to replace. To avoid this scenario, it is important that you keep yourself abreast with the ever-changing guidelines on promoting products and services on Facebook.

How can Salony Creations help?

At Salony Creations, we offer specialized services to help you manage your marketing campaigns on Facebook. We help you avoid common mistakes that can easily mar your campaign.

We also provide monthly services of managing your facebook accounts whereby our specialists work on your account on a daily basis, educating your fans about your services and products. This helps them to participate in your discussions, thus increasing your fan base by combining facebook with other media like Twitter and Myspace.Check out our facebook page here, and become a fan to get regular updates to what we are upto.

In our next newsletter, we will deal with another important question: What is the difference between Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups and and which is the best for your business?