BTW Most of my SEO specialist work is moving to working exclusively with web designers for their small business clients which is where a lot of my rants are coming from.

What I’ve noticed is that some of the big issues facing those I work with, and that keeps rearing its head, are the multitude of questions that come in from clients.

These questions usually have nothing to with the work being provided to the client.

However, when you are the go-to person it is usually a good idea to help out–the problem is that these questions take a lot of time and don’t usually pay your bills or earn income.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, the job of the web team is to help a client with specific work not to tutor or instruct them–unless of course you offer classes.

This makes me want to ask, “Do you have specific tasks and services clearly outlined for your clients?”

If not, perhaps you need to make that a priority.

Helping clients (aka exceptional customer service) earns good will and referrals…but one of the reasons I am working on the Small Business Guide to Websites & SEO is to take away some of that burden because it is bogging down web professionals all around the web.

Hence, they are not answering their phones and then the client complains to people like me.

Anyway, I had to laugh since one of the mutual clients I share with a very adept web designer emailed me asking me to teach her about Twitter.

Eesh–someone told her it was a good idea.

Is it?

Yes and No.

Yes, because all businesses or organizations should be on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

They can find you, interact with you and you can better connect with them if. you. use. it. right.

Big Bear businesses and the surrounding rural towns fail on this one big time–the exception being those Realtors who are working overtime.

But we already set this client up and she is good to go–even optimized for it.

However, no is the other answer because in the Twitterverse  a business needs quality versus quantity to attract the right people to it and to maintain good relationships with those people.

However, someone misled our small business buddy  into believing that she needs a lot of followers to help her out.

Which is the wrong reason to add people.

Most people would not do that in their non-virtual life–why would you in cyberspace?

Yes, yes, some markets (like social media marketing) do go crazy with numbers. BUT that is their business and what they do!

Quite frankly I am amazed at those who actually manage their business with thousands of followers.

The best way for a small business to grow on Twitter is to

• add people you know and
• have them invite their friends.

You should invite your email list to join you–and if you don’t have an email list–I’ll be touching on that too.

Since I am on this topic, be sure to join Guerrero Ink over on Facebook for more tips and hints.

Don’t believe me?

Have a listen to Internet Marketing Guru Guy Ed Dale:

Okay, not convinced?

For those of you who still want to proceed and build up a following:

How to Get More Twitter Followers from WikiHow
How to embed a Tweet

Does your business need an online presence?

Absolutely!

Get a professional web team to help you. I recommend that you do a bit of exploring:

• Become A Blogger Premium or Become A Blogger Free Tutorials
• Word Press TV
• Get a Green Domain Host
• Hire Tiffiny for Web Design
• Hire SEO Specialist

If I could say anything about this project is that if anything could have gone, wrong it did!

More on that later…

One of my goals was to make the product profitable for affiliates AND more profitable for me.

This would accomplish two goals, it would help my affiliates drive traffic and sales while also increasing my profits over time—even if I decided to do a limited offer give away.

To accomplish this I hyperlinked to products and websites with traceable, analytic links so I could see which links would be most useful and popular.

One of the great tools out there now is Ninja Affiliate. This program allows you to create your website site specific affiliate links so they cannot be copied AND get you the affiliate referral credit.

After thinking about this more, I decided to include links to a couple of my social media profiles and my websites and created a fan page on Facebook (which was turned on live about a week before launch) and a Twitter identity just for this product.

In the ebook I developed an easily understandable concept for applying the strategies to address the problem and then outlined the content.

Things changed as I wrote but I put the final design work up for bid and submitted the manuscript to a few people for editorial comments and corrections.

There are a variety of professional freelance sites available out on the internet but I enjoyed the professionalism I found at eLance and so decided to use their services again.

The bids varied greatly and sorting through the portfolios was a daunting task. Bids ranged from as low as $50 up to $700.

Eventually I narrowed my choice down to three but finally decided on a provider that seemed to have the energy and extra personality that I was looking for at a midrange price.

Imagine my chagrin when she also asked for all the image files separately. It turns out that when images are placed into the Word program it alters their quality.

Yikes!

I had about 80 of them in a folder with lots of other images.

Disaster then struck…

Although I did extend the deadline for her, she announced a family emergency and that she was abandoning the project!

This does not sound too bad but it was a holiday weekend, I had just found two new competing titles, AND my second choice provider was unavailable, half my money was already paid out and the rest was tied up until the offices reopened almost a week later!

So, I hit the forums and located two professionals to help me. One who would design the mini site and another who volunteered to help me out AND gave me a great deal since I was already out of some money.

So, what can I recommend for anyone else working on a similar project?
I recommend naming the images according to the chapters and then the actual name of the image. You can also number them in addition to the chapter and name–but if you move them this becomes a nightmare.

Also, to help your graphics person, make an ordered list of the images in a text file under each chapter or section headers AND submit them in the order as they appear. If you can, set up a temporary account where your provider can access them online.

eLance has a message board where you can place all the files related to the project. (My new designer just had me email them over.)

Finally, make sure all the images were purchased, created by a hired graphics person, or were in the public domain to avoid any legal issues in the future.

The next phase of the project was to wait for design concepts to arrive and to begin working on the landing page and other requirements for the affiliate group I decided to work with…

If you want to take full advantage of this type of learning watch the video below to learn how to set up an account and get inside information on how to navigate YouTube.com successfully.

If you have an interest in building your business or writing career I recommend the free course called the 30 Day Challenge.

While you are at it, drop by Word Press Direct to get an account.

I’ll write more on these later.

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