The answer is ‘nothing whatsoever’ happened for most Facebook page owners, with the overwhelming majority of fanpages every bit as ‘live’ and visible as they ever were.

So, what was it all about and why did most notice no changes?

Allow me to explain.

There are two different ways of adding content to your Facebook page.

On the one hand, you have the mass of users who build a ‘standard’ page using only the tools and resources that Facebook makes available through their account. For these good folks, nothing changed at all and I dare say that most were entirely unaware that changes were afoot in the first place!

On the flipside however, there are thousands of marketers who are keen to take fanpage usage to the next level by using ‘custom’ page designs. This cannot be done from inside the Facebook system, but the page can be constructed and hosted elsewhere before being ‘iFramed’ into or onto Facebook.

Think of an iFrame as a framed page that overlays the page over which it appears and you’ve got the basic concept.

An iFrame must be pulled in from outside – most commonly from a hosted WordPress blog – and Facebook saw this as a potential security issue. Hence, if you use a custom page and an iFrame, it can only be pulled in from a secure hosting account from October 1st.

Most page owners are happy with the tools and resources offered by Facebook, so this change did not touch them at all.

So there you have it, that’s what happened or more accurately, didn’t happen for the vast majority!

Still, I’m sure that your life is eminently richer for the experience of being part of such an important global non-event, eh?

As of October 1^st, all Facebook pages must be secure, because as the Facebook people themselves suggest, ‘As the Web evolves, expectations around security change’.

If you have an account, Facebook holds your personal data and – perhaps because they have been so widely criticized for apparent security lapses in the past – they’ve decided to protect your data by securing every single fanpage. If you make fanpages, this is something you cannot ignore, because it isn’t going to go away.

Unless you’ve secured your pages already, the URL that they are served from begins with a plain vanilla ‘http’. To make a fanpage secure, it must be served from an ‘https’ address which indicates that the URL is secure and that the data being passed back and forth is encrypted.

So, what does this mean in practical terms assuming that your fanpage – or for when you make a fanpage for your clients – is currently in an unsecured environment?

Step one to make a fanpage secure is to have an SSL or security certificate attached to the domain where that fanpage is hosted.

There are a few possibilities here.

To begin with, your current web host may offer a shared security certificate. In other words, some hosts offer a security certificate that covers all domains on their server, which should in theory be all you need.

In practice, I’ve found that whilst his seems to work well with some hosts, it’s far less effective with others.

The problem with this is that whilst his seems to work very well with some hosts, others are far less reliable. For instance, I use IX Hosting for some of my sites and their shared security certificate seems to work very well but with other hosts, the performance is patchy at best.

Nevertheless, option one is to use or switch to a host who offers a shared certificate, in which case, IX Hosting are a good choice.

Option two is to approach your existing web host to see how much an SSL certificate for a single domain is going to cost from them. Under normal circumstances, you’d expect to pay $100 or more per year, although you may find that they offer cheaper alternatives.

If you’re going to use a dedicated SSL certificate (i.e. one that is specific and unique to your domain), you also need a dedicated IP address as well. With most decent hosting companies, this shouldn’t cost more than a few dollars a month.

The third option is to buy an SSL certificate from a third-party provider.

This gives you the opportunity of scouring the market for the best deal. Before doing so however, check out Namecheap because they currently offer the cheapest SSL certificates I’ve found at $8.95 a year.

Be sure to check with your hosting company that they are happy to accept a third-party security certificate before you buy. Most are but I haven’t checked every host, obviously.

Facebook pages are changing forever in just a few days, and if didn’t know how to make a fanpage secure previously, you do now. If haven’t secured yours yet, you need to take action without any further delay. Following these simple guidelines will set you on the right road.

One final request. Please ‘Like’ this to ensure that your Facebook friends all know about it too. After all, you want to help them protect their Facebook resources as well, don’t you…?

PS. In the spirit of total disclosure, yes, I’ve included affiliate links in this article and yes, I’d be really grateful if you click through them. But if not, c’est la vie, non?

PPS. More about how you make a fanpage secure next time. Which won’t take another year, promise…

In fact, I’ve been incredibly busy with creating my own stuff, working a ‘normal’ job (in an International School), building a new business and putting together content for other online marketers as well.

However, I’m back, and I’ve got something incredibly important — and free — for you.

Unlike my wife and the rest of the population of planet Earth, I’m not a big Facebook user.

However, I’ve been putting together a lot of Facebook materials recently, and the next post is going to highlight some critical Facebook changes that are just around the corner which you may be unaware of. If you are and you’re using Facebook in your marketing efforts, your ignorance could kill your business.

I’ll tell you more about it very soon.

I would therefore suggest that I’m pretty good at differentiating between high-quality financial advice and some of the garbage that is still peddled by far too many as so-called ‘professional’ financial planning advice.

There are some great financial planning professionals out there, but there are also an awful lot of loose cannons too, advisers that know very little sorting out money matters for those poor souls who know even less.

This unfortunate paradigm makes me laugh and silently cringe at one and the same time because I clearly remember how the global financial services market was going to be cleaned up 15 or maybe even 20 years ago.

For instance, living so close to the place, I know (and have worked with) some extremely well-qualified Singapore-based financial planning experts. I’ve also met quite a few that I definitely wouldn’t want to be left alone with in a darkened room…(it’s my innate fear of rabies, see?).

So, why am I telling you all this?

The answer is simple.

Meeting both top professional financial planning specialists and people who could at best be described as rogues (and not of the lovable variety) in the past few reminded me of something I learned a long time ago when I was on the ‘good guys’ side of the financial planning fence.

If you are going to take financial planning advice from anyone, you had better make certain that you know that the individual you are dealing with is above board, honest and knowledgeable.

Fortunately, establishing an individual financial advisers credentials is not as difficult as it may at first appear. All you need to do is ask the right questions.

So, find out how long they have been in financial planning industry, asked them whether they are licensed or qualified (if applicable) and above all, check that the financial planning products that they are able to recommend to you are from a wide range of companies and financial institutions.

It’s really a lot easier than you think to work out whether some so-called expert really knows his (or her) onions, but if you’d find an excellent free guide to sorting the good from the bad in the financial planning world, just click the link and it shall be yours.

Traffic is the key to your success now and it will be the key to your success even more so in the future.
More visitors equals more sales, more ad clicks, more recognition, more list subscribers and ultimately more money. The product you are selling or promoting could be complete crap and yet with enough traffic, you’ll make money but the best product in the world won’t make you a dime without visitors.

Not to put to put too much emphasis on it, but you need traffic and the more of it there is, the better
So, how about if I told you that there is a great source of traffic that has sent me thousands of targeted visitors that I guarantee you’ve never heard of?

One that is totally unique as far as I know and yet it’s maybe the best ‘under the radar’ traffic source there is?
You wouldn’t believe me, right?

Okay, judge for yourself.

Check out:

http://helpareporter.com

This is a site (and that’s not an affiliate link BTW) where over 100,000 registered journalists from all over the world post in excess of 200 jobs every day for which they need sources!

That’s right, they need people like me you and me that they can quote, and when they do, you’ll get a mass of new visitors.

Take a look because all cost free targeted traffic is good traffic, right?

If you find this useful, why not help others by bookmarking it? Just click below (and don’t forget to comment either)…

This puts cash in your pocket for many reasons (as I hope to prove with a case study that I’m putting together right now).

First and most obviously, you have a product to sell. That’s cash source #1 right there.

Secondly, you add customers to a mailing list when they buy your product.

Take a little time to build up trust with them and you can recommend products and services which you can be pretty confident they will buy.

And as every experienced marketer knows, existing customers are always the easiest and most economical to sell to (every new customer costs you in both money and time terms), so these are ‘maximum profit’ sales too.

Thirdly, when you create your own products, you build your brand and authority in your market too. When prospects know your brand and recognize you as an expert, their resistance to buying from you is minimized.

I’m sure there are other ways that I’ve missed (if you can think of anything, please add your comments below) but these three give you an idea why when it comes to making the big ‘moolah’, creating our own product has to be the way to go.

But most marketers think that creating a product is difficult which is why I’ve just published a new guide called ‘Product Creation Essentials’ which you can download completely free.

This guide is designed to show anyone who has never created their own information product before everything you need to consider before and during the process of doing so.

It deals with every individual aspect of the process including research, creating and then marketing the product, highlighting many hurdles that beginners usually find alarmingly easy to run into!

If you have ever considered the possibility of creating your own information product, this is one not to miss. Even if you have not done so, the book is packed with background knowledge and concepts that cannot fail to help in your online marketing efforts.

To grab your free copy, click the following link:

http://stevecowan.com/recommends’FreePCE

And please add any comments, queries or questions you might have about this guide below this post.

Thanks…

This is insane but absolutely genuine. But it also lasts for just a few more days, so you have to be very quick.

One of my favorite software developers is Brad Callen. He’s the guy behind what I still consider to be the best keyword software on the market (Keyword Elite) and a brilliant SEO report – and Brad is a master of SEO – called SEO Mindset.

I’d definitely recommend that you take a look at both the software and the book – both are truly outstanding – but make absolutely certain that you take action on what you are going to read on this page no matter what.

Brad has just launched a new service called SEO Link Vine, which as the name suggests is a new link networking system/tool. But here’s the crazy thing (or several actually)…

First, the system is free.

Second, it automatically adds content to your blog and it ‘uniquefies’ the content that it is adding as it does so. So, if building a site on autopilot sounds like a good idea (no more spending boring hours writing content for your site), this tool is for you (and remember, it’s free).

Next, it’s an excellent niche research tool and because of the way it is building your site, it’ll send you a ton of free targeted traffic as well.

So, it sounds good so far, right?

Well, here’s the really crazy thing.

For the next few days, until April 9^th, Brad is actually giving away cash…really!!

For every site you add to the system – that is, your own sites, chunks of virtual real estate that you own – Brad’s company Bryxen are going to add $1 to your PayPal account! If you have 50 sites, that’s $50 for adding them all to the system, 100 sites is worth $100 and so on…

It sounds insane but it actually makes sense when you think about it. A link network is only strong if there are lots of sites in it and what better way of making sure you help the network grow than paying you to do so?

But like I say, this is only open for a few days, so you’d better get a move on if you want to take advantage of this insanity generosity.

Here’s the link again – SEO Link Vine. Do it now…

STOP-PRESS: A couple of people have asked for proof that there really is money being given away here – after all, it sounds nuts, right? Here’s the screenshot:

Okay, let me explain again what this does. It builds your blogs and sites for you, period.

It collects content, makes it unique (you can reject anything that is not unique enough for you) and then adds it to your site 2,3,4, however many times a day you like. You also have the ability to manually review content before it is added so anything you don’t like, you don’t post.

Now, this is not primarily about finding other people to join the system. It’s about adding your own sites so that they are automatically updated, with the degree of automation being entirely your choice and getting paid to do so.

But here’s the thing,

Until this Friday, you will get $1 in your PayPal account for every site added by anyone you add to the ssytem too (look at the bottom of the screenshot).

So, it you have a list, mail it out today and you could add $100′s to PayPal literally overnight by giving away something that is extremely useful and totally free.

Take a look now…SEO Link Vine