The first thing that you can do is create your own profile, and include as much or as little information as you like about your interests, your contact details, location, schools, workplaces, as well as other details. Additionally you can add photo’s to a gallery or more then one gallery. And you have the option to share your profile with everyone or just with the people that you accept as friends.

Connecting with friends is a more important part of Facebook, then some other social networks, as hearing about and sharing what is actually going on for you is an important part of this social network. Additionally with the type of interactions that are most commonly available they are not always things that you want to be sharing with a huge group of strangers, which is part of the reason why private private profile options available.

A lot of the idea is to be sharing with your friends, what you are doing, your stories, your photo’s and favorite links and information. However another much larger part of using Facebook is the applications and Groups. Groups let you connect with other people that are interested in a similar idea, hobby or such. Anyone can join groups and there are the normal things such as discussion groups and the likes which are part of the group.

The Applications however some seem to take on a life of their own. Some of the applications are simple one with survey’s or trivia Q & A, while others are more like a network in themselves, or fully  fledged games that you can play. This is maybe not the best area of the site to be thinking about growing your web based business, but it can be a fun place to relax for a little while. However it is something that can quickly become addicting.

Finally is the ever growing ability to connect with other sites and share information using Facebook Connect. There are more and more sites coming around that are letting you use your Facebook credentials to connect and log into their service and share information with your Facebook friends, and vise versa.

Facebook is possibly a definite part of the strategy that you need to be looking at with Social Media, however it may not necessarily be the best suited to your specific aims for your site. So it is something that you can only really work out from trying it.

You can visit Facebook at www.facebook.com and you can join me as a friend on Facebook at www.facebook.com/no.office

You have a user name that your updates are sent from and then have the option to choose from about a dozen or so different options for the joining text to your update, things like “wants to” or “Is”.  The concept is fairly similar to other sites that offer you the ability to update your status with your friends, however there is a couple of small differences.

The first is the use of a system called Karma, which gives you points for doing a certain range of things, while it takes away points of other things. This seems like a good system, as it means you can be rewarded for being a good member of the community, however at the same time, some of the things add or remove possibly for what i would imagine is the wrong reason. The easiest way to gain Karma is to log in a lot, it gradually adds a little each time and builds up.

Possibly one of the downfalls of this system is that the time line could get quite cluttered if you have a large group of friends that update often. While there are filters to break this down, it could also become time consuming to do so.

Of course there is a place for plurk it does have some good benefits, however you would need to weigh up the advantages to what you actual goal of using the service is.

You can visit Plurk at www.plurk.com

What twitter is in essence is a social network that is kind of like a chat room only it is continually ongoing and is with everyone, for the most part. Anyone can join your conversation and as such you can join anyone elses. This makes it a very powerful network if used correctly.

As with any system like this it does have some limits, for example your message cannot exceed 140 characters in length. Also there are other limits such as you cannot connect to follow more then 2,000 people without first having that many people follow you. Additionally there are limits on the number you can follow in a day, the number of messages you can send and such. However unless you are permanently there using it exactly like a chat room you should have little issues with these limits.

Finally Twitter has been set-up with an API that developers can make use of to connect their program to Twitter directly. This means that there are a wide range of tools available to improve the way that you use Twitter. Some make it easier and some just give you a different way to use it.

Either way Twitter appears to me to be something that is going to be only growing at the moment, and it is something that if you plan to make use of Social Media, that you cannot ignore.

You can visit Twitter at www.twitter.com or follow me @no_fixed_office

Reasons to Choose Wordpress

There are a great number of reasons to choose Wordpress when starting your blog. Some of the features that are included as part of Wordpress may be more important to some bloggers then others. So your personal preference will likely play a big part in your decision. Just one example is for people with little or no programming or design experience, the range of free templates may be encouraging. While others may like the potential power you can get from modifying the coding of the templates. Some of these features include

• A great variety of templates, both free and to purchase.
• The ability to categorize and tag posts easily.
• Built in spell check in the editor.
• Previews and auto save,
• The ability to post text, audio files and video files. Easily.
• A variety of privacy options
• The ability to track statistical data, related to the blog.

Taking a careful look at these features will help you as a blogger determine if Wordpress is right for your or not.

Starting a Blog with Wordpress

For those of you that choose to make your blog using Wordpress, you will not be disappointed. Firstly the time from nothing to having your blog ready to go, can be as little as a few minutes. This takes away a lot of the frustration in getting started and makes the whole process a lot quicker and a lot smoother. You also have a choice, between setting up your blog as a stand alone site, or getting a hosted blog at http://www.wordpress.com. While some of the features do vary slightly, the majority of the system is quite similar. Literally all you need to get started is an email address and a wish to set up a blog. Or if you prefer to go with hosting the blog yourself the process is not much different. Just one or two extra steps, especially if you have web hosting with Fantastico, which allows you to install Wordpress Automatically. Plus the need for a domain name and a hosting account. However this is still fairly straight forward.

Support Offered by Wordpress

For many first time bloggers the type of support offered is very important. This is because first time bloggers may have quite a few questions about the process of starting a basic blog and once they establish a basic blog they may have additional questions about using advanced features and customizing the blog. Wordpress offers a great deal of support for bloggers of all skill levels. The support offered by Wordpress includes the ability to contact the support staff as well as the ability to receive support from other members through online forums. Although the support staff is incredibly responsive some bloggers enjoy the ability to communicate with other bloggers in forums. This is because the forums are active 24 hours a day and bloggers can find support from peers at any time.

Kanoodle Bright Ads (http://www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.cool)
Kanoodle’s offering allows publishers to get ads related to topics or segments, and not the traditional keyword oriented ads. The site also groups publisher sites with advertisers by hand to ensure high-revenue generating ads. And speaking of revenue, the amount of money you receive is a clear 50% share of the amount of money Kanoodle receives for an advertiser.

Fastclick (http://www.fastclick.com/publish.html)
Fastclick offers you an impressive 65 percent of what it makes from a click on your web site. Payments are done monthly, via PayPal or through checks. The ads can be formatted as you wish, and Fastclick even offers a free support service for its members and no fees are required to register with the service.

Clicksor (http://www.clicksor.com)
Clicksor will earn you as much as 60% from the amount of money your web site produces. What you get is about the same as AdSense, there are targeted text ads, you can view the revenues from your web site in real time. You can receive money via PayPal or through a check every two weeks, provided that you have earned more then $50. If you haven’t made that much, your earning roll over to the next period

AdBrite (http://www.adbrite.com/)
AdBrite offers publishers the possibility of integrating text ads in their pages. These are done on your own rates, with the web sites you approve by hand so it bares some similarities with a classic advertising scheme. You also have the option of adding a “Your Add Here” button that buyers can immediately click to ad space on your page. It can also be used in conjunction with Google AdSense, maximizing your CTR and offering advertisers the possibility of showing their links in your Google AdSense space. You have full control over the look and feel of your adds and finally, you get an incredible 75% of what the advertiser pays for on every click.

TargetPoint (http://publisher.targetpoint.com)
TargetPoint is oriented more towards content publishers. It offers full control over the look the ads, statistics over your site’s overall performance and better revenue. It’s free to register and you earn a guaranteed 60% of the total revenue. You can get paid with Paypal of Bank checks and (most times) wire transfers as well.

So as you can see there are many alternatives to use for advertising on your web site. But don’t forget you don’t need to limit your site to just one advertiser, and you can combine some of these program’s with your existing Adsense program. For some other alternatives don’t forget to check out Adsense Alternatives #1 and Adsense Alternatives #2

Nixie (http://www.nixxie.com/display.php?section=Partners)
Nixie claims to hold a technology that can read and understand your site, enabling it to display the most relevant content to your site. Besides text ads, Nixie also features price comparison listings as well as live auction advertising. It’s very easy to implement and has a good payment policy as well.

Chitika (http://www.realcontext.com/index.php?option=RealContext:+Contextual+Targeting+Engine)
RealContext uses Artificial intelligence to retrieve the most relevant ads for your page. And there’s an extra feature which makes RealContext unique as well. Keywords are selected based upon which previous selections payed off and which didn’t. That means there’s a constant feedback process that ensures you gain better revenue from your ads. It also supports blocking certain adds and child-safe filtering and many more options.

AdHearus (http://adhearus.com/webmaster.php)
AdHearus is a very feature-packed contextual ad provider. As with AdSense, advertisements are targeted but it doesn’t stop here at all. The ads are very flexible, you can select from text-ads, banners, rectangles, pop-ups, pop-unders or skyscrapers. You can also display your own ads, through rotation, both on your site and on other affiliate sites, which makes AdHearus a hybrid with conventional advertising technologies. There’s a very comprehensive on-line real time reporting feature and, as usual with such services, starting out is free and it’s a breeze.

AffiliateSensor (http://www.affiliatesensor.com/)
AffiliateSensor has highly customizable ad blocks, which you can make for yourself with an easy to use on-line interface. You also get realtime reporting with clicks-by-domain, page and refferer. There’s integration with Google AdSense as well, through the google_alternate_ad_url so AffiliateSensor can be used as a substitute for Google PSA’s (Public Service Ads).

MIVA AdRevenue Xpress (http://www.miva.com/us/content/partners/arx.asp)
MIVA AdRevenue Xpress is targeted towards small and mid-sized publishers. It implements Search Box functionality and also features things like a Category Directory as well as the handling of 404 error pages. It can be integrated with your page using a simple on-line wizard.

contextWeb ContextAd (http://www.contextweb.com/Corporate/publisher/publisher.shtml)
ContextAd offers the possibility of contextual ads for dynamic pages, meaning ads will change as soon as your page does. It’s very easy to use and free to sing up for and offers a transparent payment policy. The ads are fully customisable and real-time reports are available 24/7.

If you are looking for more options take a look at Adsense Alternatives #1 and Adsense Alternatives #3

Well there is some good news for you. There are many alternatives to the Adsense program, which attempt in varying degrees to overcome some of the short comings. Here is a list of some of the more noteworthy ones, with a brief descriptions of each.

Bidvertiser (http://www.bidvertiser.com/)

Like AdSense, Bidvertiser displays text ads in your page. But the difference lies in the fact that advertisers bid over your advertising space, ensuring you earn as much revenue as you possibly can. This also means that bids will increase over time, earning you even more cash. You also get a great way to customize your ads with a very easy to use tool and detailed reports on your site’s status.

AllFeeds (http://www.allfeeds.com/?action=publishers)

AllFeeds has a great pool of online advertisers to choose from. It also features many display formats that you can choose from. These include banners, buttons, XML feeds, DHTML pop-ups and so on. It also features real time reporting of your ad status. The site will mail a check every month, provided that you earn more then $25.00, while rolling over earnings for the next month if you don’t. Another interesting thing about AllFeeds is that it integrates with Google AdSense, maximizing your earnings with AdSense.

Quigo AdSonar (http://www.quigo.com/adsonarpublishers.htm)

Quigo AdSonar achieves relevancy by placing a filter according to your site’s categories. It also offers you on-line reports of your site’s status and the possibility to add your own custom ads replacing ads that don’t gain you any revenue. The setup is very simple, in a similar fashion to AdSense’s and quite customizable as well.

MarketBanker (http://www.marketbanker.com/mb/sell.php)

MarketBanker allows you the unique possiblity to set the pricing for your site. It also allows you to allow or reject any link that appears on your site (although AdSense itself does a very good job of this as well, with URL filters) There’s also a statistics section which will allow you to see how well your site is doing. The ads are small just like AdSense’s and they’re just as easy to set up. Also, registration for MarketBanker is free.

Vibrant Media IntelliTXT (http://www.intellitxt.com/site/web_01a.html)

Vibrant Media IntelliTXT offers user-activated ads, highlighting certain words within the content of the page and presenting relevant ads when a user hovers his mouse over them. It uses a pay-for-performance pricing scheme and can easily be used along with other advertising methods, because it is unobtrusive. It places you in full control, allowing you to easily integrate it within your site with some simple JavaScript.

BidClix ( http://www.bidclix.com/PubTop.html)

BidClix is different because it has advertisers compete for clicks on your site, which in turn is meant to generate the highest possible profits for your page. It also has a very large pool of advertisers which ensure there are plenty of people to choose your site. However, it does require more polish on site contents then AdSense. As most sites, real time statistics are available and its very easy to get started with this service, but it’s also very flexible.

This is just a small sample of the many options available so don’t forget to check out Adsense Alternatives #2 and Adsense Alternatives #3.

One of the options that you can choose is to make use of Google Adsense, which offers a range of different advertising options to help you monetize your website. These can offer you some easy ways to integrate adds, or you can put in some time and test different integrations of the ads to try and maximise the return from the ads.

To go through all of the details in this one post, would be just a little to much so i will seperate out each of the different types of ad’s that you can create and discuss each one in it’s own article.

• For Content – Text based ads which are content driven
• For Search – Ads generated from search results through a search box on your website.
• Video Units – Add’s some content in the form of video’s and ads along with them.
• For Feeds – Incorporate ads into your feeds for your blogs.

At the moment each of the detailed articles is getting put together and i will update the links for each as soon as possible.

However if at some point you are planning to expand and have multiple websites, then you are almost certainly better off looking for a good reseller hosting plan. What a reseller hosting plan offers you over a individual account is the ability to create multiple accounts yourself. When you purchase a reseller account, from most hosts you will get the ability to log into a Web application called Web Host Manager (WHM). Through WHM you are able to set up accounts with different limits on things like storage, bandwidth, as well as limit or leave unlimited things like email, databases, etc.

If you are planning to have more then about half a dozen websites, you will more then find a reseller account to be a benefit to you. The added benefit is that it is not a huge step further to actually start reselling hosting from your reseller account. All it takes is a little more learning and getting it all setup, which in fact many of the things that you need to make it work to resell are included and can be installed through things like Fantastico, the only extra thing may be a way to accept payment.

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