Before we go into how you can use Facebook to promote your business, have a look at the following statistics:
- Facebook has more that 500 millions active users
- The average user has 130 friends
- The average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
- There are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices
- People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

What the above stats tell you is that there are a huge amount of people connected to Facebook, they spend alot of time on Facebook (both using a traditional computer and while on the move using their mobile devices) and they are connected to many businesses and events and share these with their friends.

So how can you get connected to all these potential customers? First step is to create your business page – this is free to do and you can start off with as little or as much content as you wish, adding in extra content whenever you want. You can then suggest this page to friends and other businesses and if they choose to ‘like’ your page, it will appear on their profile becoming automatically visible to all of their friends. They can then suggest your page to their friends and it continues like that.

The important part comes next – be active with your page. This can be with simple updates to your page, adding Facebook-exclusive promotional codes, creating events (such as a sale/promotion, open days, etc) or actively engaging with other Facebook users. Facebook users, and internet users in general, are fed such a huge amount of information constantly, it is important to be on their screen – ‘out of sight, of of mind!’

What if you have a website already – do you still need a Facebook page also? The answer is ‘yes!’ While your website can be a wealth of  information on your business, products and services you offer etc, this is often largely static content. Facebook, on the other hand, will have a certain amount of information on your business but its point is about being active – active and up to date content and information, getting in contact with customers, generating a buzz around your business. Also, there are more and more options to integrate your Facebook into your website so visitors can easily go from one to the other.

The above is only a introduction on what you can do on Facebook and, more importantly, what Facebook can do for your business. The above alone can generate interest in your business, awareness of the products/services you offer and ultimately bodies through the door and real sales at the end of the day. And that is before you consider spending a penny on paid advertising!

For more statistics on Facebook, please visit http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

To create your own page for free on Facebook, please visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?ref_type=sitefooter

What are the advantages to having a sitemap?
Well, in addition to making it easier for your visitors to navigate their way around your site, sitemaps also make it easier for search engine spiders to crawl your site. This can improve your site’s search engine optimization by making sure that all the pages can be found. This will increase your search engine visibility, as well as your traffic.

And since most search engines will only follow a finite number of links from a page, having a sitemap ensures that search engines and visitors alike can access all the content on your site.

Do you need a sitemap?
Well, it depends on your site. If your site only has one or two pages and hardly any content, then no. You don’t need a sitemap.

However, if your site has multiple pages and lots of content, it definitely won’t hurt to install a sitemap on your site. Here’s a good rule of thumb: Once you get to the point where you are no longer able to include all the links to your pages on your home page, then you need a sitemap.

After all, anything that will help your visitors as well as the search engines navigate your site is a good thing.

Great, Now I want to build a sitemap for my site
Ok you can use the following link to find the best sitemap creator for your site;

http://code.google.com/p/sitemap-generators/wiki/SitemapGenerators

But while including images and text on your site is very straight forward, including video can be a little bit trickier. This is because video files can come in different file formats (.mp4, .flv, .avi etc) , video formats (MPEG-4 or H.264 are the more common), can be displayed using different techniques/viewers (YouTube viewer, Flash viewer, Quicktime viewer etc) and some options above are compatible with some broswer but not others. Also, video files are greatly larger in size than images so bandwidth is a major consideration.

When designing your website, you will want to code it to work with the broadest audience possible. And when you are including video on your website, a little more work is involved to achieve this. For example, Flash (which is a very popular choice for implementing video) is not compatible with iPhones/iPads/iPods and Apple have plans to remove built-in support in their Safari browser. And the major browsers (Internet Explorer and Firefox) do not offer across the board support, but this can be remedied quickly with addons and plugins. Up and coming browsers like Google Chrome do offer across the board video support, but with only approx. 10% market share it isn’t wise to bank solely on this option. The good news is that you can code video on your site to be viewable to more than one of the above options. Code to suit different browsers/platforms can be used in conjunction to offer cross-browser support.

So now that you have your video on your site and have set it up to be available to the broadest market, your next step is to make sure people can find it. Ensuring search engines can find your video is called video SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and follows many of the same techniques of standard website SEO. You might be familiar with the usual keywords, descriptions, descriptive file names but what is also helpful is having a transcript of your video (search engines cannot search the contents of a video, but they have no problem searching through text), including links with the video to allow your visitors share your video on their website/social network, including a thumbnail image with descriptive file name – there are many tricks to make your video search engine friendly.

The internet is fast becoming a lot more interactive (with the incredible popularity of networks such as Facebook and Twitter) and websites are very media/content-rich so it’s important to be able to keep the attention of your visitors. And just as important, you need to ensure your traffic increases, or at least continues, and to do this you will need to have your video content search engine friendly.

1) The Basics
The greatest invitation you can give a hacker to compromise your blog is a failure to ensure that your WordPress installation is running the most current version. Older versions of WordPress suffer from numerous security vulnerabilities which the more current versions have patched. Upgrading WordPress is a simple process, log in to admin area and select ‘Updates’ from the Dashboard.
At the time of writing you should be running version 3.0.1
It is also important to keep all your plugins and themes up to date. The Updates area of the Dashboard will tell you if there is a newer version available. It is recommended that you regularly check this page to keep on top of the latest releases.
A strong password is a must. The use of special characters will make brute-forcing your password a much less appealing method of attack for a hacker. A simple password can be made quite strong by using numbers to replace letters as shown in the example below. Instead of ‘hosting123′, use ‘H0$t1ng123′

2) The less information you give a hacker the harder his job will be
A default WordPress installation will give away certain information that a hacker can use to formulate a plan of attack against your blog.
WordPress by default broadcasts what version it is running in your pages meta-tags. This information lets a hacker know what attacks your blog is vulnerable to.
The default username is admin. This can be used in conjunction with a brute-force attack that if successful will give a hacker full access to you blog and can do with it what ever they wish.
The default database prefix is wp_. This should be changed to something more unique.
While making the above changes may sound like a daunting task especially to users who may not consider themselves “technical”, there are many plugins that can be downloaded to do the job for you.

3) Security Plugins
WP Security Scan

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-security-scan/
WP Security Scan will check you WordPress installation for the most common vulnerabilies and give suggestions as to how you can improve your security. It will ensure that your files are using the correct file permissions, remove the version of information from the Meta tags and test the strength of your password. It is recommended that you preform regular security scans of your Wordpress installation.

Login LockDown

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/login-lockdown/
This plug-in will record any failed login attempts. It records the IP address of the copmuter used along with a timestamp of every attempt. Too many failed attempts results in that particular IP address being blocked from connecting to your blog.

Stealth Login

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stealth-login/
Change the default login page to one of your choice. The first place a a hacker will attempt to enter a password is the default http://www.exampleblog.com/wp-admin

- Coppermine Photo Gallery: 1.4.26 -> 1.5.6
- Joomla 1.5: 1.5.17 -> 1.5.20
- Moodle: 1.9.8 -> 1.9.9
- Soholaunch Pro Edition: 4.9.3 r17 -> 4.9.3 r41
- TikiWiki: 4.1 -> 4.3
- WordPress: 2.9.2 -> 3.0
- Zen Cart: 1.3.9b -> 1.3.9d

These updated scripts are available immediately on all shared server accounts. You can install or update your current software installation from your control panel.

Fantastico, for those who have not used it, is a great tool that allows you to automatically install or update many of the most popular open source scripts.  For example, if you want a shopping cart on your website, you have the choice of many scripts, including osCommerce or Zen-Cart.  For blogs, we have Word Press, Drupal and many more.  Simply log in to your control panel, and select Fantastico.  You are then presented with the range of scripts available, and with a few click your software is fully installed and working.

Image by suzukik via Flickr

In a recent post we looked at how you can use web analytics tools already included in your LetsHost Complete Hosting Plan to analyse your website traffic and gain valuable insight into how your visitors use your site.

While these basic log file analysis tools are fine for giving you a general overview of activity on your site, they offer a very basic user interface and a pretty inflexible window on your logfile data.

Enterprise class analytics software for free

Enterprise class analytics software can (and does) cost many thousands of Euro, but thanks to Google many of the features you’d typically find in high end commercial analytics software are now available for free.

Welcome to Google Analytics.

Setting up Google Analytics on your website is easy. Once you have a Google account (if you don’t already have one you can sign up for a Google account here), just head over to the Google Analytics website.

While you’re on the Google Analytics homepage, check out some of the great, free Google resources to help you get more out of the product. When you’re ready, just click on the blue “Access Analytics” button, and sign in with your Google credentials.

• Follow the on-screen prompts to set up your analytics account.
• Once you’ve created your account you’ll see a page with Analytics: Tracking Instructions. For a standard setup you can leave the settings on the left at the default (single domain) value
• The code in the pane in the middle of your screen is your Google Analytics tracking code for your website.
• You’ll need to copy this code and add it (or ask your web designer to add it) immediately before the closing </head> on every page on your site that you want to track.

That’s it. Google Analytics will start tracking data for your website, and offers you a wide range of metrics, tools, goals and customisations to help you make informed decisions about your online marketing.

For a quick overview of the basics, check out the video below, and check out the great free Google Analytics learning resources in the Google Conversion University.

According to a report by The UK Online Measurement Company (part of the Nielsen group) UK internet users spent 65% more time online during April 2010 (some 884 million hours) than they did during the same period in 2007.

But it’s not just the amount of time we’re spending online that’s changing… it’s also what we do with that time.

In April 2007, Social Networks & Blogs accounted for less than 9% of UK Internet time. In April 2010 they accounted for 23% of UK Internet time.

In absolute terms the amount of time spent on Social Networks & Blogs jumped 340% between April 2007 and April 2010, from 40 million hours to 176 million hours. Only the Coupons/Rewards (516%) and Food & Cooking (363%) sectors showed stronger growth over the same period.

“Despite the large increase in the amount of time people spend online and the increasing proliferation of websites and online services, one thing has remained constant and that is the bulk of time accounted for by communicating, networking and playing games. These are the pillars on which the Internet as a heavily used medium are built.”

-Alex Burmaster on behalf of UKOM.

Irish patterns are likely to mirror, to some degree, the online behaviour exhibited by our nearest neighbours… and these shifts in internet usage are something to consider as you ponder the future online strategy of your business.

Image via Wikipedia

When it comes to making the most of your great value LetsHost Irish hosting and domain registration, crafting a quality website comes pretty high on the list.

No matter what your online project, getting your website right is a crucial element in its success. You need too find a great web designer to work on your website project. But where do you start?

Here are a few suggestions.

• Check out their website: the best place to start when assessing any web design company is with their own website. Does it look professional? Is it functional? How well does the site address the needs of its target audience (in this case, that’s you)?
• Check out their web design portfolio: examine the portfolio section of their website, but go beyond the designer’s site and click through to the websites themselves. Think about the client site’s goals, and how well the designer has addressed them.

That should help you whittle things down to a manageable shortlist… now dig a bit deeper.

• Get recommendations: check the contact details on the best of the portfolio sites for your shortlisted web designers. Drop them a line by e-mail or pick up the phone and ask for some honest feedback on their web design experience.
• How is their online reputation?: web forums, online communities and peer review sites are another good place to find information about your short listed web design firms. Is the online vibe positive or negative? What are people saying about them?
• Are their sites search engine friendly?: go back to the portfolio sites of your short-listed designers again. Pick a few relevant keyword phrases and type them into your favourite search engine. Do the portfolio sites appear on the search results page?
  • NB. Low ranking doesn’t necessarily indicate a problem with web design – there are many components that contribute to search engine ranking – but it’s something you should ask them to clarify before making your decision.
• Does your web designer adhere to web standards: go to the W3Cs website validation page and enter the address of your short listed web designers’ sites through the MarkUp Validator, Link Checker and CSS Validator. Are the sites web standards compliant?
  • NB. You shouldn’t necessarily discount your favourite designers because of this – but it is something else you should ask them about before making your final decision.

If you’ve run through the above you should have eliminated all but a few competent and professional web design companies you’d like to quote / tender on your website project.

The final decision is, of course, up to you.

Content is what’s compelling you to read this blog post right now. Content is the fuel that drives the web. Content is what adds value for your site visitors, and ultimately what will determine the success (or otherwise) of your online business.

And yet so many businesses neglect to invest properly in this most important element of their website.

It’s not all about design

Businesses happily pay thousands to designers and developers to create attractive aesthetics for their new site, but leave the content as practically an afterthought.

While design is important, and the look and feel of your site does a lot to make the visitor experience more attractive and compelling, remember it’s your content that does 90% of the work on your website.

• It’s your content that will get your pages ranked with major search engines like Google and Bing
• It’s your content that will attract incoming links that will drive more traffic, boost visibility and enhance your reputation and authority
• It’s your content that will deliver value once your visitors arrive, enticing them to stay for longer and convincing them that you’re a company they want to do business with.

Set aside some of your budget to invest in content

How much of your online budget have you dedicated to producing great web content?

While solid figures on this are hard to come by, anecdotal evidence and a quick look at small business websites across the web suggest that it’s a frighteningly small percentage.

Given how critical good content is to creating a successful website it’s reasonable to suggest that businesses would be well served by investing at least as much on their content as they do on their web design.

Make content an integral part of your website right from the start

Your content should be front-and-centre in your web development strategy right from the start. It should be an intrinsic part of the design process – informing decisions about the site architecture, the navigation structure, the overall look-and-feel… and visa versa.

It’s important to plan your content carefully from the very start… to know what your customers and prospects are looking for online, how your content can best deliver what they need, and how your site design can best accommodate that content.

Your web design and web content aren’t mutually exclusive elements of the web development process – they should work together to create a unified and engaging experience for your visitors.

Image by JasonBechtel via Flickr

If you’re shopping around for a new web host you may have noticed that not all web hosting packages are created equal.

Most hosting features are easy to compare and contrast, but there’s one crucial factor that a lot of people overlook. Speed!

Why do you need a fast web host?

Although the overall performance of your website depends on a lot of different factors, your choice of hosting partner has a significant role to play.

Server specification, the number of accounts sharing server resources and the capacity of your hosts network infrastructure will all have an impact on how quick and responsive your web pages feel… and that’s important.

Faster web pages could improve search rankings:

Google has been talking a lot recently about making the web faster. Check out this Google video for some background on how and why the world’s leading search engine believes a faster web is a better web for everyone:

As part of their initiative to promote a faster web experience for their users, prominent Googlers like Matt Cutts have indicated that site speed could become a factor in search rankings in 2010.

Historically, we haven’t had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast. It should be a good experience, and so it’s sort of fair to say that if you’re a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don’t want that as much.

Google’s Matt Cuts talks site speed with WebPro News in December 2009.

Faster web pages improve user experience and conversion

Once people find your site it’s a “no brainer” that more responsive web pages are much easier for them to navigate.

Web users are an impatient bunch. They won’t wait around for your content to load;  instead of twiddling their thumbs they’ll use their index finger to click through to a competitor’s site.

Improving the performance of your web pages (and the speed of your web host is a part of that) will help you to retain more of your site visitors for longer, and ultimately convert a higher proportion of them into subscribers, firm prospects and paying customers.

LetsHost takes hosting performance seriously

Here at Letshost we understand how important hosting performance is to your online business. That’s why we invest in the very latest web server technology and state-of-the-art hosting infrastructure.

We believe we strike the ideal balance between cost and performance for our hosting customers – check out our Irish web hosting options today to see how we can help your online business to thrive.