At WooHQ we all keep a close eye on the emails we receive, whether they be good or bad, happy or irritated users. In that way we can continue to add value, find purpose and direction, and in turn deliver happiness to our users.

We love receiving glowing testimonial emails from WooTheme users dotted around the world, it makes our pixel-pushing, computer-bound work more personal knowing we are delivering our products to actual human beings, not just zip files that we deploy to the interwebs.

We received this one from Mark Simmons on his experience with the Aperture theme and we thought it would be great to share these occasional “happiness” emails we receive with you our site visitors.

Mark Simmons of Kent, UK

Because of what I had been reading I decided to change my website to a Blogsite (farrbott.com). Research indicated WordPress.org was the way to go, so I am completely new to WordPress. It took me a while to even get it round my head how a blog worked and was made.

I was reluctant to choose a free theme from the WordPress site without any support. My first foray to choose a theme had me buying a competitors theme (Headway) as it promised full customisation and SEO. Now I’m no idiot, I’ve made loads of websites, taught myself Quark, Photoshop, et al, but I just couldn’t get that theme to do very much, nor was I willing to spend days watching tutorials.

Then I came across Woo during my blog research at the foot of a Coda based site, followed the link and found dozens of well designed, functional blogs with some customisation, brilliant. Tho I’m a designer I’m not a blog/web designer and I don’t have time to learn .php so happy to use something well designed and functional. I chose Aperture. I test drove it in the ‘playground’ and in an hour built the beginnings of a blog I was happy with, simple. So I bought it, loaded it on the server and an hour later did what I had in the Playground ‘again’ and had the beginnings of my blog. In fact it took me longer to choose a design than to implement it! Lots of choice and each one designed for specific blogging needs, so had to choose well.

Now my wife has seen how easy it is using the WooThemes she wants ‘in’ too and is just choosing which one/three to buy.

Here are some of the features:

• Cool home page slider with post snippets we developed specifically for Syndicate
• 10 widget ready areas including one below posts for e-mail subscription forms or ads
• Uses Google Fonts API for a neat personalized design outside of standard web fonts
• Multilevel dropdown menus for all your static pages
• Custom header uploader to display your own brand

Test drive Syndicate here and Purchase Syndicate here

Get Syndicate and 85+ Other Themes in our All Access Theme Pass

The All Access Theme Pass from iThemes is the best theme deal on the planet with over 85 themes, including Syndicate, iThemes Builder ($127) and Flexx ($199.95).

If you’re a web designer/developer building sites for your clients, this is a great deal.

Plus, don’t forget our mega WordPress Web Designer’s Toolkit – which includes the All Access Theme Pass, our PluginBuddy Developer Suite and WebDesign.com annual training membership!

*Ability to create clans
*Ability to login/register with their PSN account and/or Facebook
*join clans
*Web based chat for clans
*Ability to show their Playstation avatar and maybe show their game stats, achievements, awards, and trophies
*Ability to form alliances
*offer email address automatically based on username
*calendaring for scheduling online game play
*Standard roster showing all members of the clan, their access level, title, thumbnail image, participation rating, medals, and member-supplied field values custom to the game the clan plays
*PS games database by PS version (PS1, PS2, or PS3) where users can choose which games they play and can be found under a “My Games” tab. (This could be a plugin where I can enter the name of the game, image of the game, a short description of the game, genre, and the release date, Playstation version, ability to search the game database, and a wishlist of games they would like to purchase or are interested in. Users should be able to rate the games they are playing and be able to leave a comment about the game as well as find friends who are playing the same games.)

The Buddypress theme must include a child theme as well as a standard blog theme for clan sites/blogs. The theme for clan sites should be similar in design and colors to the main site’s theme and have the added functionality like Facebook where users can have a wall and the ability to add status updates. All themes and plugins must be fully functional for an Nginx server.

This is for WordPress 3.0 Multisite and Buddypress. Even though this is for a Buddypress install, I don’t want the theme to look like a typical Buddypress site, but more like a more upscale social networking site. Below are few sites that inspire me:

http://bit.ly/baR24t – I like the two images from the top because I like the way the profile is designed and organized.

http://bit.ly/yN9Es – This site has some of the functionality that I am looking for and it is a social networking site for all game platforms and not just Playstation.

$300 for project

I love his breakdown of the way we SHOULD approach word problems: VISUAL image first, then a good question, and ONLY after those initial two phases do we add structure and possibly steps.

Dan blogs on blog.mrmeyer.com and is ddmeyer on Twitter.

If you know someone who teaches math, share this video with them. If you teach math (in any capacity) take twelve minutes to listen to Dan’s entire message. While you’re at it, be sure to also share two of my favorite educational technology use examples for mathematics:

1. Darren Kuropatwa‘s Scribe Blog Post Hall of Fame (and the entire idea of “Scribe blog posts”)
2. The Mathcast 247 Project

H/T to Jean Hendrickson of Oklahoma A+ Schools for highlighting this fantastic video today during day 1 of our Oklahoma Creativity Institute!

Technorati Tags:
curriculum, education, school, transformation, word, math, mathematics, problem, solving, pedagogy, transform, rewrite

  

Despite its privacy issues, Facebook clearly has a key role in global Internet activity. It has become a kind of universal social network, being used for both personal and business needs. For many individuals, companies and organizations, Facebook has become an integral part of their branding strategy and promotional campaigns.

Facebook provides many tools for maximizing the effect of your presence on the social network, most of all by means of business pages, also known as fan pages. Using a variety of applications and Facebook API tools, one can get creative not only with the page content, but with the design, too.

In this post, we’ll give you an idea of how to use Facebook for your business and self-promotional efforts. Below, you will find best practices for custom Facebook fan page designs, with various approaches to creating an attractive, descriptive and engaging Facebook business page. In addition, the selection of tutorials and resources for Facebook fan page development might help you get started with your own effective Facebook presence.

By the way, it’s been two years since Smashing Magazine’s Facebook fan page launched (now with 18,500 fans). We have worked hard to integrate discussions, useful tips and give-aways to make the fan page more appealing and engaging.

[By the way, did you know we have a brand new free Smashing Email Newsletter? Subscribe now and get fresh short tips and tricks on Tuesdays!]

Showcase Of Well-Designed Facebook Fan Pages

Giants of the Industry

Big brands demonstrate the best use of Facebook by far. Getting millions of fans may not seem like a big deal for Coca-Cola or Victoria’s Secret, but these companies managed to create fan pages that engage users on a much deeper level than by just asking them to click the “Like” button. An interesting trend seen across this category is of large companies taking Facebook to a new level, putting it at the center not only of their social media campaign, but of their entire online presence.

Starbucks
Currently with the number one fan page for a brand on Facebook (with almost 8 million fans), Starbucks takes a distinctive approach, focusing less on loud entertaining apps and more on high-quality content and beneficial offers for its fans. Starbucks has learned how to effectively use status updates and how to share a lot of interesting, useful and engaging material aside from its product updates. The company also offers a couple of interactive apps that not only are fun (e.g. the Instant Story tab) but that offer tangible benefits (e.g. discount coupons, and functionality that allows fans to manage their Starbucks accounts right in Facebook). The fan page also has an interactive map that links to the company’s regional Facebook pages (just as BlackBerry does, as we’ll see). With no unusual visual indicators on its fan page, Starbucks demonstrates that functionality is at least as important as aesthetics.

Red Bull
The fan page for Red Bull is by far one of the best on Facebook. By implementing a number of innovative ideas and engaging apps, Red Bull makes the best of its Facebook presence and thus stands out from business pages for other brands. A good example of this is its Twitter stream, which, instead of featuring just Red Bull’s corporate feed, assembles tweets from sponsored sports athletes and allows fans to connect with them beyond Red Bull’s domain. Live Web TV that anyone can view right on Facebook and a variety of fun games also encourage users to interact with the brand. While the welcome page is not in the default menu bar, it’s quite informative and serves as a compact graphic map of the entire Facebook page. Red Bull is also a pioneer of using Facebook as a recruiting tool; adding a careers board to a profile with so many fans makes sense indeed. Bravo Red Bull!

Skittles
Although Skittles’ fan page features two brightly designed, eye-catching tabs (one a graphic presentation with links, the other promoting its “Mob The Rainbow” campaign), the company has set its Wall tab as the default. This is typical of popular brands that don’t require an introduction. It allows fans and visitors to the page to immediately follow the company’s updates and join the conversation.

Coca-Cola
Another giant with a million-plus Facebook fans, Coca-Cola has a fan-centric Facebook page. It encourages active user participation and interaction between the brand and its fans. The landing tab is set to the Coca-Cola introduction, which contains a dynamic box with latest updates and a “Like” button, links to other social network profiles for the brand, a fan highlights strip, and info about the product and the page’s creators (by the way, this Facebook page was created by two Coke fans and then later supported officially by the company). Another highlight of the Coke fan page is photo albums: in addition to some standard product shots and event photographs, many other albums are included, presenting Coca-Cola not only as a popular beverage but as a multi-generational icon. Here is a good example of how to make use of photos on Facebook.

Twilight Saga
The default tab for the official fan page of the blockbuster series Twilight Saga is a large graphical tab promoting the latest episode, Eclipse. The custom tab incorporates elements of the movie’s website and the trailer, live Twitter updates, links to official websites and other info. Two other custom tabs are dedicated to the second film, New Moon, and the official movie soundtrack. The entire page is rich in content and delivers its information effectively.

More Beautiful and Engaging Facebook Pages

Room 214
A nice approach to the Facebook welcome page is demonstrated by social media agency Room 214, based in Boulder, Colorado. The default tab, with its nice duo-tone and sketchy font, looks minimalist and attractive, and it focuses on introducing its team members. The “About” tab has a clean two-column layout, with some basic info about the company in the left column and cute roll-over links to the staff’s Twitter accounts, official website, blog, contact page and corporate Twitter page. Another graphic tab covers the agency’s clients. A simple yet well-executed fan page design.

Porsche
The ColorStyler tab on the fan page for Porsche is so darn great that one immediately wonders why on Earth they didn’t make it the default tab? The pure FBJS tab allows users to select a Porsche model and customize its look in a live preview mode, with a nifty color and rims picker. One then can send the Porsche image to a friend or publish it on the page’s wall. This hidden gem makes the entire page shine.

Digital Turf
The fan page for Digital Turf is an interesting and rather confusing case. The page design itself is wonderful: the excellent company presentation, two-level sub-navigation, diverse data and cute style is a feat of FBJS and makes this one of the most attractive business pages you’ll see on Facebook. Here’s the confusing part: Digital Turf specializes in developing Web-building and media solutions for political campaigns and organizations (maybe not exclusively, but that does figure prominently in its list of services). The question is whether this design style communicates the company’s strengths well enough to attract its target audience. If it solved this concern, Digital Turf could turn its fan page, which is awesome as it is, into a Facebook promo bomb.

Revision Eyewear
The main tab of the Revision Eyewear fan page features an impressive Flash intro, with bold photographs and transitions and a dynamic “Become a Fan” link. The eye-wear manufacturer also uses Facebook for its charity work; a custom graphic tab on the page explains its causes and displays donation links (the “Become a Fan” button turns into a donation button—very clever).

Thurston & Betts PLLC
The Facebook page for law firm Thurston & Betts is notable for its “Like Us!” tab. A simple informational scheme in the center, with nice roll-over buttons leading to the company’s website, is a clever solution: neat yet substantial. The tab also includes the firm’s main contact info and a map of its location. It’s difficult to imagine a better Facebook page design for a law consultancy.

Daddy Design
The fan page of Miami-based Web design studio Daddy Design includes two custom tabs: “About” and “Portfolio.” Both tabs use the page’s entire width, which, along with the striking orange color scheme, makes this page hard to pass by. The business page is tied closely to the company’s official website design, and it highlights a neat FBJS portfolio, with links to Daddy Design’s social profiles. It actually creates the feeling of a website within the Facebook page. Great work.

1-800-Flowers
In our opinion, this is one of the best uses of a Facebook business page for e-commerce. By becoming a fan of 1-800-Flowers on Facebook, you can access up-to-date content, send virtual gifts to friends and shop for flowers right on Facebook (via the Flash-based application Alvenda). The company’s “Welcome” page has a simple and attractive grid, consisting of four sections that engage visitors with various activities. Also, the cool promo code field offers a discount to anyone who hits the “Like” button.

The Game – Team A
The Game, for the Sony PS3, has two beautiful fan pages on Facebook, dedicated to each of the two teams in the game. The two pages have a similar design, featuring beautiful graphical tabs (and especially fine typefaces) that link to the interactive Facebook applications. The “About” tab includes an interactive worldwide game stats map, which is a nice touch.

Oxelo
Oxelo’s fan page would be rather generic if not for the inventive Diabolo Roller tab, which promotes its new model of roller blades. Built with a Flash app, it allows a nifty 360-degree view of the product.

Teesey Tees
Teesey Tees use its Facebook presence effectively: it partially implements an e-commerce element from its website that allows Facebook users to browse t-shirt designs in a sleek FBJS gallery, directing them to the regular store for purchases. The fan page also includes a blog and a charming fan-only tab containing a discount code. There is no “About” or “Welcome” tab, and the default tab is set not to the product gallery (which one would expect) but to the Wall. While this is normal for big brands, it’s not so clear why a company with a smaller audience, such as Teesey Tees, would do this. Still, this is an attractive and well-executed fan page.

Threadless
Popular t-shirt producer Threadless takes the e-commerce on its Facebook fan page to the next level. Here, the native Facebook tee design gallery is supplemented by a size-selection menu and shopping cart buttons, which direct the user to the cart on Threadless’ website. The customer review section, with its “Share” and “Like” buttons, enhance the shopping experience of this fan page. Threadless also makes good use of the video and photos tabs, which, along with the live webcast section and active discussion board, make for an engaging, community-oriented Facebook presence.

Cranium
Board game Cranium has a beautiful Facebook fan page, which includes several promotional FBML pages. It doesn’t have any JavaScript gimmicks, just cutely drawn illustrations and cheerful colors that make for a positive visual experience.

Mark Meyer Photography
Mark Meyer’s business page is a good example of how to promote one’s personal brand effectively on Facebook. Using FBML and FMJS, the Alaska-based photographer outfits his custom tab with sub-tabs for his blog and photo gallery and an exquisite image slideshow. Status updates are also cleverly done, so that the Wall (the default tab) takes on the appearance of a photoblog.

Livescribe
The “Buy Now” tab on the Livescribe Smartpen fan page has an Amazon-ish design: it’s rich in content and options, but may require the touch of someone like Jacob Nielsen to be truly usable. Livescribe effectively uses multimedia on its Facebook page, which certainly presents its product favorably and is good for fan interaction on the page. But we would suggest that the company rearrange the position of its tabs, putting some interesting sections (such as the Pencasts, which are animated Flash videos of handwritten notes and audio captured by the Smartpen) in the main bar, instead of, say, the standard “Boxes” tab.

Bodum USA
The highlight of Bodum’s Facebook business page is its excellent use of an iFrame to embed the company’s online store and interactive catalogue, which is powered by iPaper, onto the Facebook profile. In other words, Facebook users can shop for Bodum products without leaving the page.

Soul City Church
The “Welcome” tab of the Soul City Church Facebook page is by far the smoothest pearl in our collection of fan page designs. The clean layout, the neat typography and icons and, of course, the awesome combination of black-and-white photography and energetic green elements result in a stunning intro page. It portrays the church as a progressive and contemporary community. Credit for the great job goes to Monster Eyes.

Diesel
Famous apparel brand Diesel has three out-of-the-mold tabs, the most noteworthy of which is the one labelled “Sex Sells.” It is built on a Flash app and provides a stylish and original showcase for the denim collection of the same name.

Lancome Germany
This one will appeal to those who admire good typography. The “About” section of Lancome Germany’s Facebook page takes on a website-within-a-tab format. It features elegant and polished typography, accompanied by high-quality photography.

Eco-Artware.com
The Facebook business page for Eco-Artware.com features a nice FBJS “Shop” tab. It’s a pseudo-shop, though; in fact, it’s just a featured product gallery, in which both product thumbnails and catalogue categories are linked to the official online store. Nevertheless, the clean grid layout and nice roll-overs for the product images make this a beautiful and useful fan page tab. Eco-Artware.com also makes good use of the “Boxes” tab by setting it as the default.

311
The official Facebook page of music band 311, particularly the “News & Multimedia” tab, is eye candy. Designed in a cool retro poster style, it contains basic info about the band and a built-in multimedia player. A large “Fan Photos” section reflects the band’s commitment to communicating with its fans. Well done!

Rei
Outdoor gear and clothing provider REI uses its Facebook profile to foster strong interactivity, rather than merely to present a plain front. Its fan page is basically a community portal where the company engages people with its social campaigns and projects. The fan page includes two Flash tabs that feature community pictures, links and fun family games.

Desigual
The fan page for Spanish apparel brand Desigual is bursting with color, freshness and style. It is versatile, with various types of promotional and entertaining content, yet not overwhelming. The mood is set equally by great content and classy design elements. Desigual points out that the page was started by fans and then made official by the brand; this is clearly illustrated on the Wall feed, where user-created updates are set to default along with the company’s messages.

Volkswagen
Currently featuring its soccer fan campaign, VW shows amazing use of FBJS on its page. Rich in content, up to date, well designed and heavily supportive of user-created content, this is the best Facebook business page that a popular automotive brand could have.

Living Proof
The fan page of cosmetics manufacturer Living Proof is all about interactivity and dialogue between the company and its customers. Chief among its many features is the dynamic Flash introductory tab, containing basic info about the company,a lab tour,a mini blog, links to customer support services and a corporate Twitter feed. The business page also includes an interactive app that helps customers choose the most suitable products.

Inspired Magazine
Inspired Magazine is one of the few Web design blogs that have customized their Facebook fan page. No fancy applications or high-volume presentations here; a minimalist FBML tab is quite enough to grab the attention of a random Facebooker and give them reasons to “Like” the page.

Sony Ericsson
Current Sony Ericsson promotions are presented via beautifully designed tabs, with videos, contest forms and interactive applications inside.

BlackBerry
Besides its several promotional tabs built with Facebook Javascript and Flash, the BlackBerry fan page features a nice FBJS map with links to local Facebook business pages. This does a good job of integrating the company’s Facebook presence and promoting its local pages.

Resources And Tutorials

Here is a list of websites and tutorials to help you understand the basics of developing and promoting your Facebook business page.

Facebook Developers
This is the ultimate resource for anyone who wants to take advantage of the variety of opportunities offered by Facebook. Related documentation, forum discussions, wikis and a showcase of best practices for Facebook integration are all aggregated in one place for both beginners and advanced developers.

Hyperarts
A lot of excellent tutorials related to Facebook fan page development can be found in the Static FBML & FBML archive on the Hyperarts Blog. The tutorials are geared to both beginners and advanced developers. The blog also features a series of video tutorials, which we’re sure will come in handy for many of you. Some of the most interesting tutorials from Hyperarts are highlighted below.

All Facebook
On the unofficial Facebook Blog, you will find news, articles, tips and stats related to the world’s fastest-growing social network. An extensive guide titled How to Develop a Facebook Page That Attracts Millions of Fans addresses its subject well.

How to Create a Facebook FBML Template
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a Facebook fan page in Photoshop. It uses a page for a photographer as an example. This is the first in a series; the second lesson covers the coding part. The source files, including the code, are available for download.

Facebook Programming step-by-step tutorial
This tutorial series consists of 22 lessons and covers all aspects of Facebook programming, including application development, displaying fan-only content and creating an interface for a Facebook page.

Static FBML: Not Every Facebook Fan Page Needs an Application
In this tutorial the well-known blogger Alison Gianotto walks you through what a Static FBML is and why it’s sometimes quite enough to create an attractive and efficient Facebook fan page.

Extending Facebook Static FBML Tabs with Dynamic Content
Continuing from the previous guide, this tutorial explains how to add some spice to your Facebook fan page using the DynamicFBML function. You can build an image or video gallery or even a micro-site inside a Static FBML tab quite easily.

Creating a Custom Facebook Page
This useful guide gives you a head start on building your own fan page on Facebook. The tutorial includes such basics as Facebook page creation, restrictions on Facebook, creating tabs and displaying navigation and content elements using FBML and FBJS.

Google Analytics for Facebook Fan Pages
Another great post by Webdigi.co.uk, in which they show you how to get around Facebook’s limitations. Even though Facebook supports only restricted JavaScript, which is usually not enough for Google to correctly track visitors, the guys from Webdigi.co.uk successfully managed to get all functions of Google Analytics working on their fan page. You can learn how they did it by reading this tutorial.

How To: Build a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business
This is Mashable’s brief guide on how to add and configure a Static FBML tab on your Facebook fan page.

Internet Explorer and Static FBML: Using External Style Sheets for CSS
This insightful article discusses aspects of applying CSS styles to your Static FBML application in Internet Explorer versions and other browsers. The post includes an important update that takes into account changes in Facebook’s API that affect the implementation of CSS styles in static tabs.

8 Essential Apps for Your Brand’s Facebook Page
This article suggests a number of Facebook apps you could use to attract fans to your brand’s landing page and to make them return repeatedly.

Add a Custom Tab to Your Facebook Fan Page (Starter Template Included)
Like some of the aforementioned tutorials, this one teaches you how to embed a custom tab in your Facebook fan page. But this tutorial is a bit more detailed than previous ones, explaining how to build HTML and CSS that adheres to the new 520-pixel width requirements set by Facebook, how to add a YouTube video and how to avoid using iFrames. Also, it contains a starter template code with comments.

Facebook Best Practices for Non-Profit Organizations
This Facebook fan page guide is written by Diosa Communications, a company that specializes in social-media consulting for non-profit institutions and small businesses. It’s not exactly a list of best practices in the traditional sense, but rather a number of recommendations on how to set up and promote a fan page to the best effect.

Adding iFrames to Your Facebook Applications: 2010
Recent modifications in Facebook’s API further restricted the use of iFrames. For instance, you can’t embed one in Static FBML anymore. iFrames can still be used in the Canvas Pages application, though, which is the topic of this tutorial.

Developing a Facebook Application for Absolute Beginners
Applications have proven to be an essential component of successful Facebook fan pages. They’re an effective tool for enhancing interactivity and engaging users. Fortunately, creating a Facebook application is not that difficult. Learn how to do it by reading this thorough tutorial by Emanuele Feronato.

Showcase

Not many galleries of Facebook pages exist yet. Still, the ones that do give us a pretty good idea of trends in this area.

Facebook Designs
This gallery is rarely updated, but it features some really cool Facebook page designs that we haven’t seen in other showcases.

Custom Facebook Page gallery
Custom Facebook Page is run by the social media marketing group North Social. The gallery contains over 60 Facebook page designs, sorted into several categories. The most recent showcase is dated December 2009.

Facebook Showcase
Facebook Showcase is the most frequently updated gallery of the ones covered here. A lot of inspirational Facebook page designs can be found here.

Facebook Platform Showcase
This showcase is slightly different. Here you can explore how companies around the world integrate Facebook on their websites.

Customize Your Facebook Fan Page: Tips, Tricks, Applications
A quick overview of basic tips and tricks for customizing and improving your Facebook fan page.

Facebook Fan Page Templates

Many freelance designers and design studios offer customization services for Facebook pages. Standalone fan page templates are less widespread, at least so far. To provide you with the best possible starter kit, we’ve collected Facebook business page themes that you can get either free or at a cost.

Free Templates

Free PSD Facebook Template | Preview | Details
This 520-pixel Photoshop layout of Facebook fan page tab is available for free downloading. If you are looking for a simple graphical presentation for your Facebook page, this template may come in handy.

Free PSD: Facebook Fanpage Template | Preview | Details
This is a free mock-up Facebook fan page with editable text, posting times and other elements.

Absolutely Free Cool Facebook Template | Preview| Details
This graphic FBML template, along with the PSD file, fonts and HTML mark-up, is available for free downloading. The package also includes an installation manual.

Free FBML Template | Preview | Details
You can use this multi-tabbed Facebook page template for free only if you maintain the links to its creators and the copyright info in the footer.

Facebook Template Page | Details
This is quite a different Facebook page template. Basically, it’s a worksheet available in text and PDF formats, allowing school students to construct a Facebook page for a character from a story or some other purpose. The template has been downloaded over 10,000 times and has gotten a lot of positive feedback because it is a new and exciting way for students to comment on their readings. You have to register to download the template.

Commercial Templates

Photographer Facebook Template | Preview | Details | All FB templates
A sleek graphical FBML tab, with an image gallery, text sections, social networking buttons and a reminder to “Like” the page. The template package consists of source files and the Facebook installation guide. Price: $15.

Corporation Number 1: Facebook Tab | Preview | Details | All FB Templates
A minimalist Facebook page theme, with space for one main image, the company’s logo or tagline, two paragraphs of text and links to social media resources, including an optional RSS feed. The user simply provide the content, and then the developer implements it in this template. Price: $98.

My Style Facebook Flash Template | Preview | Details | All FB Templates
Among the highlights of this Flash-based FBML template are diverse transitions, multi-tab sub-navigation and a large image gallery in the tab header (760 pixels in width, of course). Instructions on how to upload the template are attached; and the developer offers additional customization services. Price: $18.

Website Image Gallery Template | Preview | Details | All FB Templates
This FBML template features a FBJS image gallery, horizontal top menu navigation, social networking links and side images. The website does not mention whether installation documentation is provided; perhaps it is provided upon purchase. Price: $20.

Facebook Flash Template | Preview | Details
This is another version of the Flash-based “Welcome” tab for Facebook fan pages. It’s actually a mini-site, 520 pixels in width, with three sub-pages, including a slideshow and image gallery. It comes with step-by-step instructions on setting it up on Facebook. Price: $13.

(al)

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Post tags: facebook

Pick What You’ll Be Selling

Unless you’re planning on competing with Amazon.com selling every product imaginable, which would be a bad idea, get specific. Offline, people go to malls for the convenience of having multiple shops within walking distance so they don’t have to drive around looking for stuff. Online, the convenience is search. People search for what they’re looking for.

For example, Snowboarders aren’t looking for green tea products when they’re shopping for snowboards. So unless you know for sure that people who snowboards are secretly green-tea addicts, don’t try to sell snowboards and green tea on the same website. Getting specific means increasing your chances of showing up for the first few search results on Google or Yahoo. And, being first counts for lots of sales.

Getting specific also weeds out unnecessary competition, which improves your store’s image and product line. Unnecessary competition is having to waste effort on competing with other green tea shops when 98% of your revenue are from snowboards, not green tea.

And how does weeding out unnecessary competition improves your image and product line? Relevance and quality. It allows you to focus on what’s important for the right buyer. For another offline example, anyone who doesn’t care about what they put on their feet can go to Walmart for shoes, for the rest that prefer to pay a little more for better looking shoes, they go to the mall and head for the nearest store with shoes as its main focus. For teens, that would be Foot Locker or Foot Action, where they can get their latest Michael Jordan shoes.

Get Domain Name

Hopefully, now you know what you’re going to sell. Before you can set up a website, you’ll need a domain name, which will cost you around $10. For that, go to Godaddy.com and register/buy one. Buying a domain name is a simple process. If you get stuck, Godaddy has a 24/7 help line.

On the other hand, picking a domain name is tough because there are many choices and many mistakes you can make. Here’s a quick guide for picking domain names:

(Let’s pretend you’re going to sell snowboards.)

• Use snowboards, snowboard, snow or something relevant/obvious within the domain name. For common names like snowboardstore.com, it’s more than likely you won’t be able to register it because it’s already taken. In fact, that’s the case for many common names. It’ll take you a while to find a good domain name that isn’t taken, but keep at it. One exception to this tip is if you already have a catchy name available for purchase and a big budget to promote the online store, then sure… register anything you want.
• Don’t use cute misspellings like “snowbor”.
• Buy a .com name. Don’t settle for a .net, .org, or whatever else is available. Imagine buying fun.net, spending all your time promoting it, then ends up losing some people who wanted to go to your website, but ended up at fun.com. The .com suffix is most common so buy a .com. Otherwise, you might end up really successful with a .net, but still have to pony up a ransom for the .com version because the owner of the .com name sees how successful you’ve been with business under the .net name and because he knows you want the .com. Save yourself the trouble in the first place.
• No dashes. snowboard-store.com? Forget it.
• Last but not least, double check to see that your available domain name isn’t misspelled before you register it.

Sign Up for Hosting

There are endless tips on hosting. Below will focus simply on what you need for now.

• Do not buy the domain name through your chosen web host. It almost always end up messy.
• Don’t pick one web host over another simply because they offer a free domain name for the first year. You shouldn’t get a domain name through a web host anyway, even if it’s free for the first year or the entire lifetime.
• Don’t pay annually or bi-annually for web hosting because of the discount offers for those payment plans. Pick a reliable host and pay monthly.
• You don’t need a dedicated server or UNLIMITED resources. What your online store needs are basic features for it to function and offer up products until it’s profitable, which then would allow you to spend more on web hosting.
• Basically, look for 1 GB of space, 5 GB of bandwidth, multiple email accounts capability, multiple MySQL database capability, and CPanel (your web hosting control panel). In reality, most websites don’t cross the 0.5 GB of space and 1 GB bandwidth mark.
• Avoid Windows Hosting Packages, which are more difficult for beginners. Linux or Unix hosting plans might sound strange to you, but go with them instead of Windows Hosting.

From personal experience, I’d recommend HostGator.com. They’re cheap and reliable, really all you need for a new online store that’s going to do moderate numbers. Search Google or Yahoo for Host Gator Coupons and all you’ll pay for the first month is $0.01.

Install WordPress

With CPanel (your web hosting control panel), installing WordPress is easy. You can do it through programs available via CPanel. For example, programs like Fantastico and Simple Scripts. Here are several tutorials on how to install WordPress:

• One-Click Self-Installation – This is a video example of installing WordPress through the Simple Scripts program in CPanel. Note: Host Gator doesn’t offer Simple Scripts by default, but it does have Fantastico, which is another program that can install WordPress for you.
• Installing WordPress by WordPress.org’s Codex – This is the installation instructions on the WordPress.org website. If you’re going this route, download WordPress first. And if you need it, here’s a tutorial on how to use FTP to upload files to your web host’s server.

Install An E-Commerce WordPress Theme

Templatic.com has six for you to choose from. Emporium, e-Commerce, WP-Store, Kidz Store, eShop, Store. Templatic also makes theme installation easy with its One Click Intall feature:

You won’t have to set each and everything step by step (like you do with competetor theme). Simply activate the theme and this theme auto populates sample products, categories and does the basic settings (you can remove them with single click). It’s much easier now to understand how the theme works and all you need to do is, edit the sample products and place your own. You do not need technical knowledge.

Upload Products and Details

Shopping online and offline are certainly two different experiences. Obviously, offline, you get to see and feel the real thing. With online, you’ll need to get the customer as close to the product as possible, which means:

• showing multiple shots of the product from different angles or zoom-in capability
• providing product specs if technical information will affect customer’s decision
• including actual feedback and/or reviews and ratings if your product requires a little help from testimonials

Promoting Your Store by Adding a Blog

While a big budget opens up many more possibilities or ways to experiment with bringing people to your online store, it doesn’t take a big budget to profit. You’re really limited by your creativity. For this tutorial, I’m going to borrow some concepts from blogging and assume you have little to zero budget for promotion.

First of all, getting specific with what you’ll sell is already like picking a niche for a blog. With niche-blogging, you pick a small to moderate size topic/niche and you stick to it so when someone searches for say… digital photography, you’d show up as one of the first few results for digital photography on Google or Yahoo.

If your blog fall off track because your writing interest changed to digital painting then your chance of ranking highly on search results for digital photography will be less than that of a competitor’s blog that is completely dedicated to digital photography.

There’s no rule barring you from adding a blog to your online store. Actually, you SHOULD add a blog to your store. It’s a way to chat with customers, promote, and get feedback. Gary Vaynerchuk’s winelibrary.com brings in 8 figures per year and that’s largely due to his video blog series at tv.winelibrary.com.

Once you’ve added a blog to your store, it might look lonely and dead with few posts here and there about what’s going on with the store because that’s probably what you’ll write about in the beginning during your adjustment phase. But soon, you’ll realize your blog is a pretty persuasive communication channel. Customers get to see and hear from you. They’d come back just for the blog even if they aren’t looking to buy new products, if you have good content and are passionate about the topic.

From the blog following you’ve developed, you can start a newsletter for blog readers who want more content or special content and announcements from you. With the newsletter, now you have permission to actually tell customers about new products that are coming. For regular blogging, keeping the reader’s trust while trying to plug your products for sales is a delicate balance. With the newsletter, even if you don’t have enough content for a high quality blog post, you can simply send out a newsletter with a few tips and a plug for a new product. But of course, the blog and newsletter will only work if it doesn’t seem like all you’re doing is pushing your readers to buy more stuff from you.

(Manage newsletters using Aweber.)

Besides newsletters, you can look into linkbaits and leveraging social media. A linkbait is simply an article or blog posting that other blogs of the same topic wants to link to. For example, you’ve managed to interview the top 10 snowboarders in the world through email for sharing on the blog, which is attached to your snowboard online store. The more blogs link to your interview article, the more people come to your blog to read it. The people who came to your blog for the original interview that keep coming back for more from you will eventually buy from your store because they are familiar with you.

For those with a little money spend, depending on the topic of your store and blog, you can create blog posts tailored specifically for social media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, or Facebook. Take StumbleUpon for example, it’s advertisement program allows you to test advertisement campaigns for as little as $5.

You simply create a linkbait tailored for StumbleUpon audience, usually blog posts with more visuals because Stumble Upon users are impatient people that like to look at cool and pretty stuff. Sign up with Stumble Upon to advertise that linkbait. Configure your settings for when your campaign will start and who should see it.

Who should see it is important, you want potential buyers, not random nobodies whose going to waste your money advertising to them and not buy anything. Most people fail with StumbleUpon campaigns because they forget to select who to advertise to.

Important, with StumbleUpon, you’re advertising blog content you’ve created, not products or services from your store. To people viewing your advertised page, it’s like any other page, but you’re actually advertising a linkbait by paying StumbleUpon to to show your page to its users. While StumbleUpon users aren’t there to buy from you, they will come back to your site if you have great content, which eventually leads to purchasing a product from the store.

More Free Ways to Promote Your Store

• Guest blog on someone else’s site and link back to your store.
• Go on relevant forums or message boards. Post information people are looking for and link back to the store in your profile’s forum signature area.
• Write for content hubs like ezinearticles.com and squidoo.com and link back.

Tracking Results and Adjusting

Constantly promoting the blog and store aren’t enough. You need to track everything you can track, see what you’ve come up with, and make necessary adjustments. That means using tools like Google Analytics and CrazyEgg. For testing what version of which pages will perform better, use Google Website Optimizer.

For an example of tracking and adjusting, you can look at the statistics to determine which product page on your site people are coming to from Google and what search term they’re using to get from Google to your top ranking product page. If they’re looking for chinese chairs and your product page is selling a Japanese-inspired chair, you have a problem and that is a whole bunch of people are coming to your product page, but not even one chair is sold.

For another example, you need to track what people are searching for within your store by using Search Meter. That way, you’d know what product you’re missing or what should be the new product in the coming days or weeks.

E-Commerce Resource Links

• 17 New Rules for Successful E-Commerce Websites
• 15 Common Mistakes in E-Commerce Design and How to Avoid Them
• Google Website Optimizer for WordPress – Use this plugin with Google Website Optimizer service to test your pages. To get you started, watch Google’s tutorials.

They have a ton of great speakers lined up including the 37 Signals guys and Cameron Moll! So be on the look out for some cool notes and photos.

They have a ton of great speakers lined up including the 37 Signals guys and Cameron Moll! So be on the look out for some cool notes and photos.

A popular quote many live by is “The only real failure in life is the failure to try.” Apply this same quote to blogging, and you’ll quickly find another source of failure.

Success is an arbitrary term for many and has a far range when one applies it to blogging. For one, it could mean that you receive ten new comments per day, while to another person it means making a full-time income through the blog.

Beyond these two main sources of failure, there are several other reasons you aren’t seeing success as a result of your work.

1. When disaster hit (bad press about your business, a search engine rank hit, etc.), you didn’t have a plan for how to deal with it.
2. You don’t have a plan for the future, and you run your blog day-to-day. Sure, this can work for a month or two, but it won’t last.
3. You aren’t providing support to your blog visitors. Again, “support” can have a huge range in meaning. Respond to comments as well as emails. Don’t neglect any visitor or customer.
4. Do you provide a product or service people need? See if you can describe what you offer in just a few sentences. Otherwise, you have something people don’t have a need for.
5. Are you simply copying the competition or following trends? Recreating the success of others works, but it won’t get you too far, especially with how inter-connected all online businesses and blogs are.

Once you understand what is preventing you from becoming successful, you’ll be able to change your method for growing your business. No matter whether you focus on visitors, readers, or customers, keep these few basic ideas in mind when you write your next post or promote your blog.

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