Facebook has announced another new feature.  It will now let users pay to promote ‘friends’ posts.  The new feature comes on the heels of a service the social media giant introduced last year that lets users pay to promote their own posts.

Facebook thinks people will want to use this feature to promote charity fundraisers and events, or help friends rent out their space. The feature will be rolling out gradually to all users and won’t be available to those of us with more than 5,000 friends and followers.  To promote a post, just click on the menu button on the top right corner of a post, according to images of the feature provided by Facebook.

The new service will cost about $7 in the U.S., though prices may vary, the company said.

You won’t be able to change the privacy settings on the post you’re promoting, so if it was set to just that person’s friends, then only your mutual friends will see it if you promote it.  To safeguard privacy, promoted posts will be visible only to users permitted to see the original messages.  One potential issue, though, is that you don’t need a friend’s permission to promote their posts. And depending on what they said, the added viewers might not always be appreciated.

Facebook is trying to find new ways to generate more revenue from its 1.1 billion members. In the past year, the company has announced mobile advertising, tools for marketers on and a feature for users to send friends gifts via the site.

The tool for promoting friends’ posts will be gradually introduced globally, Facebook said.

The social network already operates a service that lets companies pay to promote posts.

There is no excuse for businesses not to have a website these days. There are a variety of options for businesses to quickly and cheaply create their first website and utilize SEO to better promote their site.

The last thing a business needs is for an Internet user to type in the name and location of that business and not find a website. Today, any credible business is expected to have a website.

For small, local businesses, a website can serve as digital storefront, proving to consumers that the company is reliable, trustworthy, and can provide them with the information necessary to purchase the product or service being offered. The Internet now serves as the core of marketing, combining all other forms of advertising including print, Internet Yellow Pages, mobile, search engine optimization (SEO), video, reputation management and e-mail/direct mail.

Once the website is built, it must be regularly updated with fresh content in order to be successful.

It is important to make sure that all content on the website is always accurate and up-to-date. This includes everything from store locations, contact information, types of payment accepted, store hours and detailed product, service and pricing descriptions.

The key to any successful venture is good customer service and the same applies to a business’s online presence.

Whether it’s a new customer with questions about products or services, or an existing customer who has a complaint or inquiry, it is important for a business website to have the tools available to easily assist those in need of help. These tools can include direct phone numbers, regularly monitored e-mail addresses and comment forms, as well as links to social networking pages. It is important that businesses respond to customers directly and as quickly as possible.

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Creating a search engine optimization campaign can be a lot like cooking. When inexperienced cooks first start to create a dish, they tend to use too much or too little of certain ingredients or have a hard time following a recipe, if they follow it at all.

In cooking, recipes are very specific about how much of each ingredient should be used. One false move can ruin an entire dish. The same goes for an SEO campaign.

Without proper training or a good understanding of the subject, it is often difficult for people to get a good grasp of what search engine optimization is all about. When most people start an SEO campaign for the first time, they tend to go all out, using every technique they can find. Unfortunately, this makes a website look ‘overdone’ in terms of SEO and such guerilla tactics usually result in low rankings.

There are many people out there that think when optimizing a website, that adding everything they can is the way to go. The result of this sort of haphazard SEO can be disastrous.

Anyone that wants to cook like the search engine optimization experts needs to follow a professional’s recipe. A poorly balanced dish will just taste bad, but an over-optimized website can actually get a business into big trouble with major search engines like Google, who look for signs of SEO manipulation.

The fundamental principle of navigation design is that you should design for the reader – the person who uses the website.  To be effective, website navigation should first be easily understood by the average web user. When designing web navigation elements, you need to always remember the main purpose of the site and the target audience.

Different readers have different preferences on how they like to navigate around a website. Some readers like to navigate geographically. Others navigate by subject matter. And some want to read the most recent documents similar to those they have just read. Therefore, to accommodate a variety of readers and their navigation requirements, a range of navigation options should be offered.  So by using multiple classifications you can allow the reader to navigate the content in any manner they wish.

Home page navigation should provide context for the reader. It is not simply about functional navigation such as hypertext and search. The home page should take content highlights from the content archive, presenting them as features. For navigation to provide the best possible context, you need to ensure that all content is properly classified; allow for a variety of product/selection homepages that publish the most relevant and positive content for that particular product or section; use related navigation at the end of a document that gives links to similar documents or websites.

From the homepage, each page on the site should be reachable within two or three clicks. Vital pages should be only one click away. Navigation should let readers know where they are going.  There are a number of ways to achieve greater clarity. Some examples: Consider drop-down navigation, showing lower levels of the classification. This allows the reader to navigate further into the website if they wish. Change the color of a link when the mouse rolls over it. This is helpful when there are many links placed close together. Because the link changes color, the reader knows exactly which link they are about to select. If the user is asked to participate in a process, such as purchasing a product online, show a progress chart to assist in navigation. This shows the user how many stages there are in the process, and what stage they are at.

To help users navigate your site – you should also consider placing a ‘Search’ box on every site page. It should be placed on the far right of the masthead.

Good website navigation can increase the viewing of your web pages. This will in turn lead to increased signups, sales, customers or members.