As a person who runs business, your schedule is already pushed to the max. You might not have time to dedicate to online marketing in a serious way. You need to make sure that any time you spend on online marketing gets a tangible payoff, otherwise your time would be better spent somewhere else.

Many business owners and managers accept that online marketing will help their business but they lack the skills to know how to go about internet marketing. Here are some tips to help you on your way to online marketing success.

Your Landing Page

As one might assume, the most important page of your website is your homepage. Your homepage is also called the landing page as this is the page that users land on when they first arrive at your site. The key purpose of the landing page is to sell your business and entice users to explore further into your site.

A key beginners mistake is to try and cram as much information on the landing page as possible. This is a bad idea because it can make your page look messy and unorganised. The overload of data can confuse or frustrate users and cause them to leave your site. The landing page should give the users the flavour of your site and contain as little content as possible without seeming sparse. You could put several articles that have a “Read more” section that draws the user further into your site.

Your navigation bar at the top of your website should have clear separate categories. For example, if you are a plumber you won’t want to have “Apartments” and “Houses” as two separate categories. You will want to have “Residential” as one category. Once the user reached residential, they can move further into the site to find the specific services for apartments or houses.

Website Content

It is important that the content on your site is original. Not only will users spot blatantly unoriginal content, but Google will punish you for copy and pasting content from other websites. Your content also needs to be relevant to your business. This is so users won’t be confused and also so you can focus on some keywords to help your rank in Google. Trying to cheat on good content will often be a waste of time, so if you don’t have anything original to say, it’s better not to say it at all

Social Media

Social media is growing as a tool for growing community awareness of your business. As with a website, you can’t just create a social media page for your business and expect people to subscribe to you. It’s not that easy. You will need to offer people an incentive to want to like your page, even if that incentive is just that you went to high school with them.

As with a website, you will need to maintain your social media page with fresh information. You could link new content from your webpage to your twitter or facebook pages. Also make sure you answer any enquires people have on your page.

Monitor Whether Your Efforts are Paying off.
There are various tools you can look into to monitor whether or not your online marketing campaign is working. There are sites such as Zopim.com or Google Analytics that you can use to monitor the traffic to your site. There are numerous tools such as TwentyFeet that inform you of your standing on Twitter and Facebook. Always remember to ask new customers where they heard about you. Keep in mind that more traffic to your site doesn’t necessarily translate to sales. It might be that your site ranks well in Google but customers are put off by your site or the services you offer on the site. If you are getting a lot of traffic and not much business, consider where your site might be going wrong and implement a new strategy. 

Windows
8 UI, Charms, and navigation
After
you have successfully logged into Windows 8, unlike previous versions of Windows
you do not go straight to the desktop. Instead you get taken to the new Windows
8 Start screen. In this screen there are numerous colored tiles that you click
on to take you to different areas of the operating system. If you want, you can
customise this interface with different colors and backgrounds. If you have
logged in with a Microsoft account, you have access your email (Outlook or
Hotmail) and contacts from the Start screen. Furthermore, you can also access
your facebook contacts from this screen provided that your Facebook account uses
your Microsoft email. Your default start screen settings also include weather
forecasts, stock market updates and news updates.

The learning curve can be quite difficult and even getting used to doing simple
things like turning off the PC can take a while.

The first thing you will need to know about is the Charms (named after the charms on
a charm bracelet). The Charms are accessed by holding your mouse on the top
right or bottom right corners of the screen. There are several keyboard
shortcuts you can use to access the different Charms as well. The Search charm
allows you to search your computer or app for a file or setting. The great thing
about the updated search function is that the Search is context aware which
means it will display different results according to what apps you are currently
using. The Share charm allows you to send information from one app to another
with formatting. The Devices charm allows you to access any Devices currently
connected to the computer such as a printer. The Settings charm allows you to
access the Windows settings as well as settings for individual apps. If you are
in an app, using the Setting charm will take you to the Settings for that app.
It can be confusing as first having some settings located in the app and some in
the Settings Charm but the user gets used to it quickly. The last charm is the
Start Charm which features the new Windows logo. The Start charm takes you back
to the start screen that you enter when you first arrive in Windows.


Another new tool for quick navigation is the Switcher. The Switcher essentially acts
much like Alt-Tab does to switch between applications. However, as not all your
applications are located on your desktop in Windows 8, the Switcher allows you
to quickly switch from, say, your Desktop to the Mail App and then to Sky Drive
and back to Desktop. Alt-Tab will just switch between applications open on your
Desktop.

Our next blog will talk about the new kinds of Windows 8 apps and the radical gamble
Microsoft has taken.

Today we are going to be talking about the newest operating system from Microsoft:
Windows 8. This will be the first in a series of articles on Windows 8.


What is Windows 8?

Windows 8 is an operating system which means it is the main link between the user and the
physical components of the computer. If your current computer runs Windows you
will probably be using Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Windows 8 has
just been released in the last few months by Microsoft.

Windows 8 is the most radical change to Windows since the turn of the century.
Microsoft has taken a risk in designing a touch friendly operating system. This
was in response to challenges to Microsoft from Google and Apple mobile options
stealing sales from Microsofts home computing base. Microsoft has acted quickly
to try to capitalise on the burgeoning touch screen market by releasing an
operating system designed to be used on a touch screen. However, Windows 8 is
still fully functional with the traditional keyboard and mouse setup.


Purchasing

There are numerous ways to obtain Windows 8. If you buy a new laptop or PC, it will
often be installed. Be careful as a lot of new machines are still being released
with Windows 7 installed. If you have an older machine that you want to upgrade
to Windows 8, buying an upgrade package is a lot cheaper than buying the
non-upgrade version. If you have a fresh PC that you have built you will need to install Windows 8 from scratch. That is, install the OEM version, not the upgrade.

Installing

The setup process for Windows 8 is similar to Windows 7 but
there are some new features. With Windows 8 it is obvious that Microsoft wants
people to be using their cloud products and these are pushed on you from the
setup process.

Microsoft encourages users to create a cloud based Microsoft account that syncs your
settings, history and appearance whenever you sign into a Windows 8 computer
with that account. This can be useful because no matter what physical computer
you are on, you can always feel a little bit at home when you are signed into
your account. You also can use this account to use other Microsoft services in
the same way you might use an Apple ID to purchase things from the App Store.
You can create create a traditional local account if you like instead of a
Microsoft account.


As you are creating your account a tutorial video plays that helps user learn
how to use the operating system. This video will loop if it finishes before your
account creation finishes so you have ample time to watch it over. This video
will be your first introduction to Windows 8 and it helps prepare you for the
use of the new and completely redesigned user interface.

In our next article, we will cover the new Windows 8 User Interface and how to use
Windows 8 to its full potential.