Do you have the Pinterest share button installed on your website? If your website contains images, you should! Pinterest is the fastest growing way to allow visitors to share images that appeal to them on your website. Then their friends follow their pin boards, share the photos they've pinned, and before you know it, you've created another resource for referrals to your business. And it's FREE advertising.
So THE most important criteria is quality, enticing images. Pay attention to your guest feedback. Do they tell you that your website doesn't do your property justice? Do you show enough what you have to offer? Your website should contain more images than words. We look at photos first, then go back for the words if the photos capture our attention.
TAG your photos! You can't have too many tags. Tagging photos helps the SEO (search engine optimization), or helps the search engines find your photos. I tag nearly all my photos with my name; Google my name and there are my photos. Tag every photo with key words or phrases how you want your visitors to find you. Think like a visitor and tag accordingly. What are they looking for? Maine vacation, Maine photos, things to do in Maine, Maine ocean, Bar Harbor Maine, etc. You get the point! Just get in the habit and tag
I was recently asked a question as a guest speaker at a bed and breakfast association meeting: Do you recommend Facebook ads? Very good question and not an easy one to answer. Do I favor them over Google ads? Simple answer, no. However, I do think there are pros and cons to the Facebook ads.
Here's my take: When someone goes to the search bar and Googles the key terms they're in need of answers to, they are on a mission. When someone is on Facebook, chances are, they are not on the very same mission. There might be times where they are, but Google is still a widely used search engine while Facebook is social media for engaging.
When I decided to look into this topic, I Googled "Facebook Ads" and check out the results!
This is just a screen capture of a few of the images that came back in my search.
This confirmed a bit of how I feel that some people will perceive ads on Facebook, because they're not seeking them out, they're just present, regardless of whether the user wants to see them or not. Although on the positive side, they are targeted and should provide relevant ads. But they're unsolicited nonetheless. I do know people who claim they've gotten business from these ads, so I am not completely averse to them, I just want you to look at all options.
So here I am on Linda Perrin's page, she owns
Atlantic Art Glass in Ellsworth, Maine.
Along the right are ads: one for snowmobiling in Maine, one for Ultra Sport socks, one for Trulia Real Estate and one for Mercedes.
Are these relevant? If I am looking at the beautiful art glass Linda is working on, am I going to click on one of these ads?
You decide!
With Google ads, clearly this is a vehicle to enable a user to find something specific. They are there to find your ad. Of course Google might cost more than Facebook advertising, so you may want to look into Facebook as an alternative.
The volume of users alone should be reason enough to become involved in Social Media...though it takes quite a bit of effort and time, it is free advertising...
Jing is a tool that allows you to capture any part of a screen you are viewing, whether a document, a website, an email, anything in your view. With a couple clicks, you can crop and save a screenshot as an image file. For me, it's helpful in many ways. I've just gone through and captured each menu bar from my website (danamoos.com) and duplicated it for each page so that I could place it at the bottom of each page too. But my website (built by Weebly) doesn't have a template with a top and bottom menu bar. So my way around this was to create an image of the menu bar and embed the hyperlinks by using the ISDNtek from my previous post. I can then in my website editing screen, add the html code I create through ISDNtek to add tot he bottom of each page. So this post ties in two fabulous tools which can be used for so many things!
Here's how I did it:
Step 1- I used Jing to create a snapshot of Google Maps.
Step 2- I used Photoshop Elements to add photos of each of my listings. You can use any photo editing site that allows you to create layers. Be aware of the size of your site where your image will appear and size it accordingly.
Step 3- I saved this as an image file.
Step 4- go to ISDNtek for the site and easy how to instructions.
Step 5- In order to add the image to the image mapper (ISDNtek) I had to upload to the internet in order to grab the "image URL".
I added this to my Flickr photos, right clicked on the photo after it was uploaded and then copied the image URL.
Step 6- then I went to ISDNtek and added the image URL.
Step 7- click on "New Link" and add the landing page for that link/image and add a caption. I repeated this for every listing/image I had, and sent each link to the dedicated listing landing page on my website.
Step 8- click "make code" and copy the code. Anywhere you can embed html code you'll be able to add your newly mapped image.
The result? check out the map on my website.Next post: Jing how to...
