Using Facebook is a difficult decision for some businesses. After all, how does it impact my business model with or without a Facebook account? Quantifying a Facebook account traffic, if any that it generates, how much time and cost would I have to spend on establishing our brand identity for the company.

Tracking your traffic is simple, use a good analytics program on your website, we highly suggest using Google Analytics.

A good example campaign is the recent T.G.I. Fridays “Become a Fan of Woody campaign”. It offers a free Jack Daniels Burger to every fan who signs up if, “Woody” reaches a sign up or fan rate of 500,000 Facebook Fans by September 30th, 2009. That’s one expensive offer if all Fans take them up on the coupon.

Along with the campaign comes two or more videos of Woody trying to recruit or griping about how hard it is to get these Facebook fans. These videos are posted directly on the Facebook Fan Page, and also on YouTube for even more viral spreading of the promotion.

How long the campaign will run after it’s 500,000 Fans offer, will Fridays be able to continue developing this same character?, or will it be retired upon completion?

Your business can implement a much simpler campaign, one involving the giveaway of a product, or not. Things like the demographic of your audience should be decided well ahead of time. Keeping the Facebook Fan page updated should be planned and executed by someone involved with the business enough to know each of it’s departments. And lastly, it should be updated on a schedule, once every two days, three times a week or just once a week. Whatever posting schedule you decide on, keep too it like clockwork.

If your company doesn’t have an experienced social marketer or search engine optimization professional on your team, call us at Blue Bayou for a free consultation anywhere in the U.S on using analytics or setting up a social marketing program at 404-567-6095.

Blue Bayou Now Offers Tool to Optimize Your Internet Presence

According to analyst firm Netcraft, there are more than 238 million Websites online with thousands more each day. Getting your website noticed online can be daunting, which is why Blue Bayou decided to offer a Search Engine Visibility package that any business can afford.

Search Engine Visibility walks a user through a step-by-step process to make their Website search engine friendly. This not only makes search engines more likely to index the entire site, but to help get the Website higher in search engine rankings.

Blue Bayou has offered a hands on search engine optimization program for a few years now, and we’re pleased to introduce this self-serve model for business owners who would rather manage their own campaigns say’s Nick J. West of Blue Bayou, LLC.

Search Engine Visibility lets users optimize their site by defining keywords, analyzing content and tracking keyword performance. Search Engine Visibility also provides a “Top 10 SEO Checklist,” which helps identify commonly made mistakes and techniques on how to make a Website stronger.

Search Engine Visibility provides excellent video tutorials and other educational materials which help users understand the search engine optimization process without an involved learning curve. Once a Website is optimized, users can submit their Website to the most commonly used search engines on the Internet.

Users can call Blue Bayou’s 24/7 customer care representatives if they have any questions during the optimization process.

For more information about Search Engine Visibility or any of Blue Bayou’s services, click here.

If you like many business owners are considering outsourcing an SEO firm or professional to assist with your companies website optimization goals, you are probably wary of dropping what may well be over a thousand dollars or more, without knowing exactly what you’re going to get for your money. Who can blame you, money’s hard earned and even more so with a tough economy.

How did you hear about the agency or individual? Did they call you up unsolicited on the phone with a line about ‘not finding you on Google’, and how they could get you on the first page of Google? Forget it, hang up immediately, seriously don’t even engage them! These are phone rooms working on sales volume, many provide shoddy or down right unethical services or, don’t do anything and just run quickly with your credit card number.

Besides, no one can guarantee you first page placement on Google or Yahoo for anything but nonsensical words or terms that are hardly, if ever searched.

A face to face meeting with your potential SEO professional is best because you should expect to get a clear, direct non-geek speak answer to every question that you have, no matter how small. Search engines, including Google and Yahoo may ban your website for any blackhat SEO tactics, after all you hired the agency.

You MUST know exactly what the web firm you select is going to do to optimize your website or your marketing efforts may be for naught.

Blue Bayou offers professional consultation on any number of website and SEO issues. Contact us today at: 404-567-6095.

Cement, much like a buildings cement forms the base, or the foundation of your websites search rank. Cement, much like the foundation of your website should not be disturbed. Doing so, without thought can cause the entire building, er, website to fail.

Is it time for website redesign? Maybe, but changing everything at once, the frames, the layout, and the meta tags can cause unwanted search rank results.

Go ahead, change the layout but don’t disturb the current meta tags, keywords, and descriptions for a few weeks. Let the dust settle as it were and then, add and remove where needed but as always, use sound SEO strategies and research your changes first.

Blue Bayou, offers the popular WebSite Tonight® product, providing key features for those yearning to get involved in the .MOBI revolution.
 
Now anyone can design and create a .MOBI-compliant Web site easily and affordably. Pages designed for .MOBI are optimized for on-the-go devices, making them easy to load and navigate from the smaller, more limited screens of wireless phones and PDAs.
 
According to industry news, over 100,000 .MOBI domain names were registered during the first four days of the Landrush period beginning Sept. 26. General registration opens up to the public on Oct. 11 when even more registrations are anticipated. To put the excitement into perspective, it took more than 10 years for other top-level domains to garner 100,000 registrations in the early days of the Internet. The fast popularity of .MOBI registrations may support estimates by Yankee Group, an industry analyst, that the mobile data services market could reach $698 billion in yearly sales by 2009, according to a CNNmoney.com article.
 
Companies large and small and across all industries can embrace the power of the .MOBI top-level domain. Using WebSite Tonight offered by , users can easily create Web sites that are formatted specifically to provide on-the-go mobile content and services. For example, Web sites that are .MOBI compliant are designed with content and graphics suited for a two-inch screen rather than a 17-inch desktop monitor. Long download times and excessive scrolling can be a thing of the past.
 
“Providing on demand information about your company, as simple as a calendar of events, current coupons and specials, phone numbers, hours and locations is a must. Even if you’re not looking to develop a .MOBI domain now, immediately reserve your brands .MOBI name now.” Says Nick West, CRO.

Other enhancements to WebSite Tonight include calendar control, photo album enhancements, animated splash pages with sound, music and video support and an expanded workspace.
 
For more information about the WebSite Tonight, visit us here.

When the economy is down, continuing education picks up. Conversion University is a great web tutorial series from the experts at Google, and it covers everything you could possibly need to improve, or even to begin tracking your websites various analytics conversions. Everything from sales, leads, exit or bounce rates and more.

Luckily for you, Google’s Conversion University is absolutely free, so you don’t have to worry about taking out any student loans. It’s online, so you don’t have to take time off the job that pays the bills and you can do it anytime day or night.

Why would you enroll with Conversion University? It’s an all in-one tutorial that anyone can follow about using Google Analytics. It’s broken up into easy to digest segments. It’s a high quality video production that doesn’t leave anything for guesswork, it’s concrete stuff from the experts at Google themselves that you can use to improve your website and understand what your seeing when looking at your Google Analytics reports.

Read more about Conversion University or sign up now here.

One of the simplest ways you can secure your visibility on the web is to register your domain name, or extend the current registration on your domain names for a minimum of 10 years.

Doing so demonstrates to the search engines, and more importantly to your customers that you intend to be in business for a long time. Confidence, or the appearance of confidence in your business translates well to all audiences, be they spider or human.

I can confidently guarantee that registering or extending your current domain registration has nothing but a positive effect on your search rank.

Don’t have a domain registrar or want to see what Blue Bayou can offer you? Click here for more information about domain name registrations and domain name transfers.

Is your market reach local, national or do you see it as International? Does your market speak a native language other than English? Reaching an International market requires, where possible that you talk to your market in their native language.

With an Internationalized Domain name you can;

* Market your products in the native languages of each of the countries where you do business.
* Strengthen global recognition of your brand by registering your domain name in different scripts.
* Search for an International Domain using “Western” characters OR Native Language character sets

Not ready to go International? You should still explore available domain names that match your brand identity, even if you don’t plan on expanding International for years. Once these domains are gone, claiming your copyright or trademark extends to these markets will be harder to substantiate.

You can find more about Internationalized Domain Names here.