It was great to see my favorite band as a kid produce one of the best social media videos. When Weezer was launching their new CD, “Pork and Beans,” they launched their hit single on YouTube. But instead of a normal video they used/modified/re-created the top videos every watched on YouTube.

• Tay Zonday
• Miss Teen South Carolina
• Numa Numa
• Peanut Butter Jelly
• Stupid Ninja Guy
• Guiness World Record - T-shirts

I am impressed, but I guess i should not expect anything less from a Rivers Cuomo (lead singer and song writer) who put himself through Harvard in 2 years.

WebBizIdeas.com started building dating websites in 2002. Around this time Match.com was getting national media attention and Dr. Warren’s eHarmony was starting to become a large player in the industry. We followed the trend, offered Dating Website Design services, and helped launch many dating internet businesses.

In 2004/2005 an Emerging Technology now called “Social Networking Software” paved the way for many Social Networking Trends. MySpace very quickly took away 1,000’s of paying members from Dating sites. Users asked themselves, “Why pay $29.99 a month when I can create my own profile, view other user’s profiles, and chat directly with them?”

Brian Peters, an internet consultant/project manager who worked for WebBizIdeas at the time, asked him self the same question. That question lead to WebBizIdeas.com heavily investing in Social Network Website Design. Over the last few years we have had the please to help build many interesting online communities built around the concept of a social network.

Today I was reviewing our dating portfolio and asked myself, “Is Starting an Online Dating Website Still Profitable?” Although we still build dating sites, the majority of the projects WebBizIdeas.com builds incorporates social networking technology. In fact we highly recommend clients incorporate this technology because…well quite frankly it helps build successful internet businesses.

I decided I needed an answer to my question. I started my research by researching Match.com. If you look IAC Fact Sheet for 2007 you will find the remarkable results:

■ 60,000 new people register on Match.com every day

■ Websites in 15 different languages, serving 37 different countries

■ More than 15 million members, with approximately 1.3 million paying subscribers

Match.com monthly membership is $29.99 a month; if you do the math that is over $30,000,000 a month in revenue! They are partnered with MSN, Cingular Wireless, Comcast, Glamour Shots, Earthlink, Oxygen Network, InfoSpace, BET, Excite, and even Dr. Phil.

eharmony.com is owneed by a private California company so records were harder to come by. The last I heard they were pulling in 15,000 new registered users (not members) a day. But instead investigating the large dating companies further, eharmony, lavalife, tickle, and Date.com, I decided to take a look at a company who owns Niche Dating websites.

The Spark Newtworks is a public company who owns Jdate (jewish), AmericanSingles, BlackSingles, ChristianMingle, DeafSingles, AsianSingles, CanadianSingles, and over 30 other niche dating websites; see the full list at SPARK NETWORKS. As you see they go after targeted markets including religious, ethnic, geographic and special interest groups.

Does their niche marketing work? Lets look at their traffic statistics:

• 38 million registered users
• Approximately 4.75 - 5 million unique monthly visitors
• 200-300 million monthly page views

Spark Networks 2008 Q1 reported $15 million in revenue, $1.6 million in net income, and $4.4 million in adjusted EBITDA. On average, paying members for Q1 was 195,325; 93,411 coming from their Jewish Dating Network.

By writing this article I really want to find out if starting an online dating website is still profitable for our target market; Small Businesses & Internet Entrepreneurs. One of my favorite Dating Internet Businesses I worked on was (not online anymore) MochaMates.com. The owner started an online/offline dating community for African Americans in her home town. A few times a month she would hold events in the comfort of her home that for African American Singles; all promotions were done offline locally.

Where she would make her money is having this network of African American Singles register on her website, MochaMates.com. She didn’t have millions of members but she did have a 100-150 dedicated member paying a registration fee each month. Her registration fee was not $29.99 BUT was $99 - $2999 a year depending on the package. Her customers LOVED being able to meet singles in person and then communicate with them privately online…reminds me how AOL IM became so popular among teenagers in middle school/highschool.

Depending on the membership package her services included matchmaking services, background checks, and free trips. Her trips were not just locally but were arranged vacations to Miami, Jamaica, and Brazil with hotels & accommodation’s included (not flight). Can you see that being appealing to an African American Single who is looking to meet other singles?

In my opinion dating websites are profitable IF you combine (1) social networking features (2) offline interactions (3) go after a niche market (4) offer something match.com & eharmony.com don’t. Unless you have the capital to build what the Spark Network did (millions in investments) the only way to compete is do build an internet business plan similar to MochaMates.

Search Engine Optimization SEO Tutorial by WebBizIdeas is for beginners. We will cover SEO techniques that you can use TODAY that will increase your search engine rankings. We will go over the definition of search engine optimization, organic results, PPC, keyword research, competition research, competition analysis, on page & off page optimization, Meta tags, header tags, keyword density, URLs, site maps, xml site maps, google webmaster tools, link development, directory submission, local directories, online yellow pages, one-way links, two-way links, three-way links, article submission, rss feed distribution, blog submission, and online press release optimization.

Do you need to build backlinks Fast?  I ran across a great list of “Do Follow” websites:

http://www.squidoo.com/dofollow

See back in the day when internet marketers didn’t exploit websites like myspace, wikipedia, flickr, Scrib, and other social media sites ALL links coming from these websites counted as backlinks in the search engines!

But just as spammers killed e-mail social media markers are already killing social networking. Major social networking sites add “No Follow” links to any link posted on their site; blogs & forums also have followed suit. So if you have a link on a PR 5 web page and wonder why your link hasn’t improved your rankings you may want to check if it has a no follow tag.

How to Check If NO Follow or DO Follow?

1. View The Page Source, if the link the code rel=“nofollow” it means search engines can’t see it
2. Download SEO For Firefox (need to use firefox web browser) - every link highlighted in red means it is nofollow

I just finished responding to a post about how far behind corporations are when it comes to Social Media Marketing. Most companies use think social media marketing is about joining a community, making a lot of friends, and then e-mailing them all about your services/events/information. Although this will inform your friends your content will not go further than that.

Who Really Controls Online Traffic & Links:

It is your job to get your information in front of the Diggers, Redditers, Sphinners, Journalist, Slashdotters, Yahoo Answers Posters, Bloggers, Directory Builders, hobbyists, researchers, and forum writers. If you focus on writing good content and getting in front of the correct Social Leader (the popular kid at school) you will find success.

Telling your dorky friends at school you are having a big party does nothing…having the coolest kid in school tell some people about your party is all it takes…that is Social Media Marketing.

Google Webmaster Tools: Webmaster resources that will help you with your crawling and indexing questions. Using these tools will improve your traffic, enhance your sites functionality, and help grow your internet business.

Google Analytics: A free tool that will help you write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, and create higher-converting websites. The statistics will show you where your visitors come from and how they interact with your site.

Google Alerts: Receive email updates on the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Example, type in “SEO TOOlS” to be notified when google indexes a page related to SEO Tools.

Yahoo Site Explorer: Allows you to explore all the web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search. View the most popular pages from any site, dive into a comprehensive site map, and find pages that link to that site or any page…i.e. find competitor’s link partners.

SEOBook.com Keyword Research: A fast, easy, reliable, and FREE way to perform keyword research. This tool shows you how many people search for keyword phrases in Google, Yahoo, MSN, and even results from WordTracker.com!

SEO For Firefox: See important competitive research and search engine marketing data directly inside Google and Yahoo search results. This extension pulls in many useful marketing data points making it a great competitive research tool.

Search Engine Rank Checker: Want to know where your website ranks in the search results? SEOBook.com Firefox Rank Checker extension allows you to easily check your website rankings in Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live search.

Back Link Analyzer: A free link popularity / link analysis tool. It shows what anchor text is linking into a page or site. So to surpass your competitors, plug in their URL, press submit, and find ALL sites that link to them, and copy

SEOChat.com Keyword Difficulty: see how difficult it would be to rank for specific keywords or keyword phrases. This tool issues a percentage score that indicates how difficult it would be to rank on the first page for a keyword phrase.

Compete.com: Compete helps you benefit from click-sharing by providing free services that create a more trusted, transparent, and valuable Internet. Their main tool is “Site Analytics” which shows how many visitors ANY website receives.

Quantcast.com: Quantcast is the only open internet ratings service. They provide advertisers with audience profiles for millions of websites and services. Their “Similar Audience” reports provides a great competition research tool.

Alexa.com: Old. Yes, Alexa has been around for ages. It is a shame they decided to only display web statistics dating back 1 year instead of their normal 5. Still a very useful tool for webmasters analyzing competitors.

Archive.org: Also known as the “Way Back Machine” archive.com allows you to see how old a website is and what it looked like in the past. A great SEO Research Tool to use if buying an domain name for a micro site.

Stompernet Site Seer: A very “Confident’ Brad Fallon & Andy Jenkins put together an elaborate marketing campaign to promote Stomper Scrutinizer. It is a great tool but watching their videos is like watching Phil Helmuth play poker…very good but annoying.

Technorati.com: Technorati is a Blog Search / Web 2.0 Aggregation site. The lower your Technorati rank the better. However, a score of ZERO means you aren’t listed, so that isn’t good. Technorati is a great SEO TOOL to use for finding what “Blog / Web 2.0″ reach your internet business has

PRWEB.com: PRWEB is the large and respectable online press release distribution company. By publishing your press release through PRWEB your news will be Google, Yahoo, and MSN Live. Read webbizideas.com latest press release.

ADDTHIS.com: Do you ever see those Social Bookmarking Sharing Buttons - Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook Widget, My Yahoo, and other little icons attached to blog posts? They are they to help webmasters build links…save time and use AddThis.com

SHARETHIS.com: Same concept as AddThis.com but more geared towards social networking sites. You can share articles through Email, AIM, SMS, Myspace, Facebook, and other Social Networks and Social Bookmarking Sites.

EzineArticles.com: Is a large & respectable article submission company. By submitting a unique and well written article through them you will receive decent exposure & deep back links. You can waste your time submitting articles to 1,000’s of directories or use quality directories like Ezine to spread your news.

Scribd.com: Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” Scribd allows you to upload ANY sort of document to promote your product or service. HINT: Upload a document about SEO TOOLS and link it back to your site.

Squidoo.com: Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” Squidoo allows you to easily create multiple back links to your site by creating multiple ‘lenses’ (i.e. web pages) on their website. View our Squidoo.com lens on “How to Start an Internet Business.”

YouTube.com: Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” YouTube.com is a great place to watch funny videos. YouTube.com receives twice as many page views as Google does! Submitting a promotional video to YouTube.com correctly can SKYROCKET brand awareness & traffic to your company website.

StumbleUpon.com: Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” SU has a great collaborative filtering/recommendation engine that helps users find ne & related websites to their topics of interest. Internet Marketers join communities and use their networking power to promote their clients.

Reddit.com: Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” Instead of bookmarking favorite sites on your desktop computer users bookmark them online using Reddit. You can also submit stories. If 1,000’s of people bookmark you, do you think that is good?

Digg.com: Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” Instead of bookmarking favorite sites on your desktop computer users bookmark them online using digg. You can also submit stories. If 1,000’s of people bookmark you, do you think that is good?

Del.icio.us: Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” Instead of bookmarking favorite sites on your desktop computer users bookmark them online using Del.icio.us. You can also submit stories. If 1,000’s of people bookmark you, do you think that is good?

Wikipedia.org: Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” What, your website can be listed on Wikipedia.com? many people know of Wikipedia but don’t realize that ANYONE can edit the site…if you know what you are doing your site can be listed.

Flickr.com: Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” Flickr is a social networking tool, a media sharing tool, a collaboration tool, and interactive tool. Webmaster, upload photos that relate to your product & service and link back to your site.

NewsVine.com Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” Newsvine is a perfect example of a social media / networking news website. If is a great place to submit new story. The best part about newsvine is that it is fast. if you have quality news it will be picked up and it will be featured.

Yahoo Answers: Have you heard the term “Social Marketing?” A user asks a question, another answers it. If you are a bike shop why not answer questions dealing with buying & fixing bikes to increase your brand exposure?

A great promotional technique to any business (online or off line) is witting & publishing a press release.  I tell my clients to (1) make sure your news is actually newsworthy (2) write for the media (3) include back links to your website.  When I write & submit a press release I think creatively, consider the bloggers, and use my press release to create deep links to products or services I am promoting.

PRWeb.com is the best place to submit a release but if you don’t have the $200 (best solution) to submit through them try these 100 free press release websites; download list below:

100 Free Press Release Websites

If you want to start an internet business on a “Shoe String Budget” you NEED to have a strong passion for the business/industry you are getting into. If you have the passion, you will acquire knowledge, and eventually wisdom; becoming a leading voice in your industry. As an expert you rely on yourself to build & market so your expenses are less.

Below I have I go over my ideas for the cheapest, fastest, and cost effective way to start an internet business on a budget. This was in response to a forum post where the user had a passion for “horror movies / Halloween.”

Build an Online Directory: Buy http://www.esyndicat.com directory software and start listing websites that deal with horror movies, haunted attractions, Halloween, horror merchandise, etc…

WHY: (1) finding related websites doesn’t cost money (2) a good internet business not only knows their competition but is associated with them. (3) will be a great way to familiarize yourself with the entire “horror industry.”

Build a Blog/Content Management System (CMS): Use Wordpress to save time & money. I would recommend using www.revolutiontheme.com for buying a template & installing the software (only $79). read about Blog Website Design

WHY: (1) Now that you are pretty familiar with the “horror industry” you will have found EXACTLY the type of internet business you are looking to start. But on a show string budget spending $1,000’s on development may not be the best move. Now you can do what Logan said, “create a site where you provide the movie planner, articles about horror movies.”

Figure it out from there: Dan Fernandez, WebBizIdeas CEO, famous quote is “We’ll figure it out.” I am a big planner but sometimes you need to run before you can crawl and you need to fail before you succeed. Building your idea this way will cost you less than $300. During the process you WILL find the perfect business / revenue model (don’t rely just on advertising or selling a product…be creative) for your “horror idea.

Minneapolis, Minnesota- June 12, 2008—At the tender age of just 17, Internet whiz kid John Bradley is set for life. No, he didn’t inherit a cushy trust fund – he sold an Internet TV Station that reported on online gaming news, reviews, games, and equipment!

John got into video production when he was only 14 by posting videos on YouTube.com. He excelled in his high school video & film class - and was soon giving tips on online video production to his teacher. “We used to create & produce live news for the school. Every day we would shoot school events” John said.

Read the FULL Article Here

I ran across an article that was geared towards helping people build online libraries of content the natural way! The web page lists out 50 different ways that an internet business owner can do to encourage user interaction on his/her website. The article not only provides tips but also tools & guides that you can refer to along the way.

If you want to use Social Media & Marketing tactics to increase user activity & traffic check out the article, 50 Tips and Resources to Implement User-Generated Content