OK – so everyone is on Facebook and if you’re in business you better have a Facebook page right? Well, it doesn’t hurt. But from my experiences and the feedback I get from my clients, it isn’t the huge boon it’s made out to be. Seems to me most people use Facebook to socialize with friends and I think there is an inherent reluctance to let business into this social setting. Imagine you’re at a party and some guy keeps interrupting your conversation to give you his business card.

When I want information about a company, their products or their services, I go to the company website. The website typically has more information and in some cases, much more information. So what does Facebook offer me to help promote my business? For those who have the time and inclination, you can post news and information on a regular basis to your Facebook site which in turn pops up on  all your “fans” Facebook newsfeeds. Just make sure your postings are interesting or it will backfire – your fans may block your postings or even get a negative impression of your company. If you don’t post on a regular basis, the Facebook page will have little benefit for your business.

So a Facebook page can be a useful component in a larger online marketing strategy, but I’m yet to hear of any great results from anyone I’ve talked to.  I think the good ol’ fashioned website (can’t believe I said that) is still your number one marketing platform.

These days, businesses of all sorts are looking for ways to save money. Operating costs are always a concern for any business and have a very significant impact on profitability.

Techeffex has worked from a home based design studio since its inception, keeping overhead costs low and passing the savings on to our clients.

But what about large projects that may be too much for a single contractor?

This is where strategic alliances come in to play. Having additional, reliable resources that can be drawn on as needed allows Techeffex to adequately staff large and small projects alike without having to keep a pool of employees on stand by. This results in the most efficient labor model for website design projects and optimal cost structures. Not only that, but in the case of Techeffex, we have alliances with experts in various fields so when we put a team together, you know you’re getting top quality work across the board. All of our experts are based locally – we don’t outsource overseas.

Techeffex is one of the founding members of Headset, an alliance of various independent contractors who provide a full spectrum of skills for any given project. Headset is in essence a virtual company – a group of workers who have worked on many projects together and know how to work together, without the need for common office space. This notion of strategic alliances of independent contractors may well be the business model of the future.

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is a service provided by the major search engines that allow website owners to promote their sites  in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for some fee. Since Google is the most used search engine, advertisers focus much of their budget on Google Adwords.

Adwords allows users to bid on keywords, usually with the highest bid getting the top advertising space on the SERPs. When a web user clicks on your ad, you are charged whatever the cost per click is.  Click costs can vary from a dime up to several dollars, typically depending on how much competition there is for the keywords in question.

Most Pay Per Click services allow the advertiser to set daily and monthly spend budgets so that users can work within their budget constraints.  Ads can also be set to display at certain times of the day for situations where the target audience is more active at during different parts of the day.

Pay Per Click is great way to bring traffic to your site. It’s not free, so advertisers need to make sure that the campaign is well run to they can maximize their Return On Investment.

Craigslist is a free online classified ad service that is very popular on a global scale. There is no charge except for employment and real estate ads. So if you have a product or service and you’re looking to increase your exposure, why not put an ad on Craigslist?

Craigslist supports text ads with images as well as HTML ads. The HTML ads look much more professional but are trickier to create. Craigslist supports a very limited subset of the HTML standard so you may want to consider hiring a professional for help with this.

Regardless of the type of ad, Craigslist will keep the ad active for 7 days, so after that you would want to re-submit the ad. You can post more often, but Craigslist does not like duplicate ads so you may want to develop several different ads.

Posting an ad on Craigslist can be surprisingly effective and it’s free. Check it out if you’re looking for new places to advertise your product or service.