Earlier in may, Google announced a preview release of the newest addition to its product mix, Google Friend Connect, a service that helps website owners grow traffic by enabling sites on the web to easily add social features to their websites.

By offering Friend Connect, which can be added to a web property by simply adding a snippet of code to the site, Google removes the technological barriers of offering social applications.

Website owners can now attract more traffic to their sites and keep them engaged utilizing the social gadgets created by Google and OpenSocial developers. Some of the main gadgets offered are member management, message board, reviews, and picture-sharing.

So in a nutshell, Google Friend Connect helps website owners in three major ways:

Increase Traffic -Visitors get engaged and bring along their Internet friends and connections from social networks such as Facebook, orkut and MySpace.

Improve Engagement KPIs - People can get more involved by getting engaged with social features developed by Google and the OpenSocial developer community.

Reduce Cost to Market - With no programming needed, the technological and financial barriers of adding social features to the sites are removed.

Friend Connect can also give Google more insight into the websites’ audiences by mapping a virtual representation of a social user on the web. This will eventually help Google provide more robust advertising through Google AdSense and Placement Targeting by providing demographic and interest segmentation.

This Google application has major implications on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM) as it incorporates user generated content to the sites.

Here is a video that shows how Google Connect works:

Have fun exploring this new tool from Google.

Andy Huang

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Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data.

Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web traffic information that you then have to interpret and make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from your host company can be overwhelming if you don’t understand how to apply it to your particular business and website. Let’s start by examining the most basic data - the average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

These figures are the most accurate measure of your website’s activity. It would appear on the surface that the more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate perception. You must also look at the behavior of your visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge the effectiveness of your site.

There is often a great misconception about what is commonly known as “hits” and what is really effective, quality traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of information requests received by the server. If you think about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits, when in reality we are talking about a single visitor checking out a single page on your site. As you can see, hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

The more visitors that come to your website, the more accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors can distort the analysis.

The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out how well or how poorly your site is working for your visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could, for example, consider improving the link to this page by making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less important, you might consider moving some of your sales copy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital information about the effectiveness of individual pages, and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In the case that a significant percentage of visitors are
exiting your website on a page not designed for that purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it’s time to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they find what they are looking for on your site, and even better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being directed - or should I say misdirected - to your site by a particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find your site will give you a vital understanding of your visitor’s needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website by typing in your company name, break open the champagne! It means you have achieved a significant level of brand recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

Remember, keep track of the data to increase your conversion, without proper analysis, you are shooting in the dark!

To your continual success!

Andy Huang

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Today I will be sharing my strategies to grow and automate my SFI business to help all of my team members to do exactly the same.

The setup instruction are outlined in 3 easy steps you can do. But first, you must be an SFI affiliate. So if you havent join SFI, you can do so join here. Its free.

Let me share with you how I brought in over 805 affiliates all on Autopilot.

Below is a screen shot of my SFI account

Step 1, lets configure the autoresponder system to put your business on Auto Pilot.

I can’t stress enough the importance of following up with SFI signups. I would imagine that my business would be nowhere near as successful as it has been were it not for following up using my various autoresponders. What’s more it is now totally on AUTO-PILOT!

Below I will show you how to upload the followups from my personal autoresponder into your own. Then I will explain how to customise these messages with your own personal and affiliate info so that they look like your own and more importantly you get any credit for sales made from them. The affiliate info included will be your Plug In Profit Site, SFI, and Traffic Swarm.

These messages will also go a long way to supporting and encouraging your personal affiliates to upgrade their SFI accounts.

Bookmark this page (Press Ctrl + D on your keypad) and pass it on to all your affiliates. The more this process is duplicated the better for us all.

Below I will outline a step by step process for implimenting the steps above. You must have a Getresponse Pro account to do this. If you don’t already have a Getresponse account then you can get one here.

If you already have a Getresponse account then read on:You will need to set up a new responder at your Getresponse account. To set up a new responder log into your Getresponse and click the “Setup & Manage Lists” on the left hand side. Then click the “Create a new list” link and set up a new responder. You will need to name it something original.

Download my SFI followup messages HERE, and create them in your account.

• Log into your getresponse account by clicking here.
• Log into your “New” responder by choosing it from the drop down menu at the top left of your screen.
• Click the “Create New Messages” link at near the top of the screen.
• Select I do not need a template, then hit next step.
• Copy day one content and hit add message.
• Repeat this step until you have completed all the follow up message with the day interval

That’s it! Well done, you have loaded my follow up messages into your account. Now you need to customise them with YOUR affiliate IDs and personal info. To do this follow the remaining steps:

Before your Getresponse account is completely configured you need to make sure that your details and affiliate links have been entered in the correct place so that they will be entered in the appropriate emails in your followup series.

Adding Your Variables To Getresponse

The “variables” section in your Getresponse is basically where you can make a change with one or two clicks and effect the links in all your messages.

This means that I can set up an email campaign, you can upload them and by adding YOUR variables you changes links in the messages automatically without having to change every message manually or individually.

For example one affiliate id in your Getresponse messages may look like this http://www.[[pre_sfi_id]]/MG
By going and inserting a variable in the [[pre_sfi_id]] field of the “variables” section of Getresponse you can automatically change this link in your followups. In this case I would insert quickinfo247.com/235051 in the [[pre_sfi_id]] field.

Now lets see how we add your “variables” which effect every message in your followups.

Please note: If you are not a member of any of these programs then it is important that you leave something in the variable fields otherwise there will be dead links in your emails.

Adding Your “Variables” Steps:

• Along the top of your Getresponse page click the “Prospects” section, scroll down to “Variables” and click.
• You should now be on the “Variables” page. Scroll down and you will see two form fields which read “Variable Name” and “Predefined Value” respectively and a check box which read “add also for slave accounts”. Usung these boxes you will add your info to the followup messages. Let us see how to do it.
• Here is a list of what each variable relates to and how to add YOUR info:
  1. name_id = This is your “name”. If you don’t know this then you need more than a followup series;-). To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “name_id” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR name(ie John Smith). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
  2. domain_id = This is your main domain name. You can basically put any website address here. If you own a Plug In Profit Site then it is a good idea to enter this URL. You can get your own website here. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “domain_id” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR website domain name(ie freeadvertz.com). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
  3. plugintraining_domain = This is your Plugin Profits Training site address. If you don’t have a training site for your Plug in team nor a Plugin site then leave this and move on to the next step. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “plugintraining_domain” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR training site address(ie myteamtraining.com). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
  4. plugin_domain = This is your Plug In Profit Site affiliate domain name. If you dont have one then leave this and move on to the next step. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “plugin_domain” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR Plug In Profits affiliate domain name and affiliate number(ie pluginprofitsite.com/main-7387). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
  5. sfi_domain = This is your SFI affiliate domain name. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “sfi_domain” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR SFI affiliate domain name and number(ie moreinfo247.com/8902557). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
  6. trafficswarm_domain = This is your Traffic Swarm affiliate ID. If you don’t have a Traffic Swarm id you can get one here(This is free to join). If you don’t want to do this then just leave then leave this and move on to the next step. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “trafficswarm_domain” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR Traffic Swarm affiliate domain and number(ie trafficswarm.com/go.cgi?318138. Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.
  7. trainingsite_domain = This is your SFI Training site address. If you don’t have a training site for your team then then leave this and move on to the next step. To add YOUR info: In the “Variable Name:” box add the words “trainingsite_domain” without the quotes. In the “Predefined Value:” box add YOUR training site address(ie sfielite.com). Leave the “add also for slave accounts” box unchecked. Click the “Add/Update Variable” button.

Congratulations! That’s it you have set up your SFI Followups now all you need to do is come to your Getresponse account whenever you get a new affiliate and add them to the series(See below for instructions).

Most Important

Test your emails to ensure that they contain all YOUR affiliate info. To do this follow the instuction below. This is very important.

Testing Getresponse Email Followups

Steps:

1. Log into your Getresponse account here:
www.getresponse.com/login.html
2. Along the top of the page hold your mouse key over the “Messages” section, scroll down to “Test Messages” and click.
3. You should now be on the “Test Messages” page. Scroll down a little.
4. Where you see “Your e-mail” enter your regular email address.
5. Click the downward arrow where you see “Choose Message” and choose “All messages” or choose a particular message from the list that you want to test. If you choose “all messages” everyone of the emails from your campaign will be sent to your email account.
6. Click the “Send test message!” button.
7. Check your email account to have a look at what your prospects see everyday when they open their in-boxes.

Note: Now every time you get an email notification of a new SFI Affiliate add them to this autoresponder to encourage them to upgrade. To do this log into your Getresponse account go to your SFI Followups account using the drop down menu at the top left of your Getresponse accout, then go to “Prospects”, then “Active prospects” and use the form there to add the new affiliates to your autoresponder system.I have added a link to this training site at the bottom of each followup message which you are free to remove. I hope you keep it there in appreciation of this series and also to make sure your team get access to training and support.

Good luck with your marketing. Tomorrow, I will show you where I get my leads from, and how to import them to your campaigns.

Andy Huang

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Dane Carlson of Business Opportunity Weblog has posted a new tools from techcruch, a new SEO tool. Here is the article below.

After testing this tool. I would still recommand Stompernet’s Site Steer tool

TechCrunch:

Want to know how to get your Website high up in natural search results, but don’t want to pay a search engine optimization (SEO) firm just to find out what you are doing wrong?

Now you can get a free, automated evaluation of your site on Website Grader. Just type in your Website address, and it will spit out a report detailing what you can do to boost your site’s SEO juice. It even gives you a grade.

Website Grader is operated by HubSpot, a search engine and Web-marketing optimization company hoping to get leads from the site.

Photo by HubSpot.

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