Let’s take a look at the six different options when inviting someone to connect with you. I’ll give you the literal definition of each connection type, and you can decide on your own if you want to be a little more liberal in your use of the types.

Colleague

A colleague is someone who worked at the same company with you at the same time that you worked there. Although you may or may not have directly interacted much, they were there when you were there.

Classmate

This person went to school with you. Technically, it means they were there at the same time that you were, even if you only overlapped by a year, and had absolutely no classes together.

We’ve done business together

This is someone who hired your company to do something, or who you hired to do something. Technically, this would be someone who you actually worked with directly on whatever the project is.

Friend

This one’s pretty literal. It’s someone that you consider a friend. For some people, this is someone you just met. For others, they won’t consider you a friend unless they’ve known you for awhile.

On this one, there’s a spot for email address. It’s important to note that the email you put here does not have to match the email they entered into LinkedIn. This is just the email that will receive the invitation.

Let’s say you have a friend named Joe. When he signed up for LinkedIn, he used joe@companyx.com. But you are friends with Joe outside of work, and you only know about his Gmail email address, joetheman@gmail.com. If you enter that address in, he will still receive your invitation by email, he’ll just get it at his Gmail address. He will still be able to sign into LinkedIn and verify your request.

Groups

If you’re active in the LinkedIn Groups at all, this will be a good one for you. This is intended to be used when you are in a group with someone, and have communicated with them enough that they know who you are, and you know who they are.

In fact, if you’re not in a LinkedIn Group with the individual, this one won’t even show up.

Other

This one would be used basically when you know someone, but they’re not close enough to consider a friend. Maybe they’re an acquaintance that you run into at local networking events. Maybe it’s your brother-in-law’s boss that you had a conversation last week. Whatever the case, you know them, but you don’t consider them a friend.

Personally, I never use this one. But I think I’m more liberal in real life about my definition of a friend.

Also note that the email address field in this one acts the same as the email address in the Friend selection.

I don’t know XXX

Yeah, don’t pick this one. You’ll get this message:

LinkedIn says, “Connecting to someone on LinkedIn implies that you know them well.” So they don’t want you to connect with someone you don’t know.

And that’s all there is to it. Again, feel free to use your discretion with these rules. Not everyone is extremely literal with them. But some people are literal with them, and some even go above and beyond in deciding who to connect and not connect with. So keep that in mind when inviting someone to connect with you.

Start making the most of LinkedIn and make some new connections right now!

In addition to linking text, images can also be linked. You can use code like the following to link an image:

<a href=”http://www.google.com”><img src=”google-logo.png” /></a>

That would presumably create an image of Google’s logo linked to Google’s website.

In addition to href, another attribute links can have is the “target” attribute. This tells the browser where to open the link. The default setting is to open links in the same window and/or tab. You can open links in a new window or a tab like this:

<a href=”http://www.google.com” target=”_blank”>This will open Google in a new window or tab</a>.

Note that you can’t control whether it opens in a new window or tab. That’s up to the user’s browser settings. In fact, they may even have it set so that the link actually opens in the same window or tab. So the target attribute is not currently used nearly as much as it used to be.

We mentioned last time that adding a “mailto:” at the beginning of a link makes browsers open your email program and start an email addressed to that individual. In fact, you can also specify the subject as in this example:

Feel free to <a href=”mailto:info@webifiable.com?subject=Complaint from website visitor”>email me with any complaints</a>.

In fact, you can actually set up a link to carbon copy someone else as well.

Feel free to <a href=”mailto:info@webifiable.com?cc=steve@apple.com&subject=Complaint from website visitor”>email myself and Steve Jobs with any complaints</a>.

You can also start the email body with “body” and a blind carbon copy with “bcc.” Just be sure to start with mailto:email@domain.com, follow that with a ? before the first parameter, and a & before any other parameters.

In addition to “mailto:”, you can also use a “tel:” to indicate a telephone number:

You can call our <a href=”tel:1-555-555-5555″>job hotline</a> any time!

This is certainly most common on mobile websites, where users are already surfing the website on their phone.

Hopefully you have a better grasp of just what hyperlinks can do now, and can at least trouble-shoot any hyperlink weirdness your CMS creates more easily.

When creating a link, you have to select the text that you want to link. Let’s look at the following example:

I can’t imagine life without a good search engine to help me find things online.

Let’s say you want to link the phrase “good search engine” to Google’s website. To do so, you’ll wrap the phrase with an <a> tag, which is a link tag. You would end up with something like this:

I can’t imagine life without a <a href=”http://www.google.com”>good search engine</a> to help me find things online.

Fortunately these tags are pretty easy to understand. Inside the first tag you have an “a” that tells your browser this is a link. And don’t forget the closing tag, or the rest of your HTML document will be linked!

In addition, you have the “href” (hypertext reference) and it’s value. This tells the browser what to do when you click on the link. In this case, it sees that there is a website address there, so it sends us on to another page.

There are other options besides putting a website address. You can also put a # symbol followed by the id of some element on the page. If you had the following:

But you can read <a href=”#moreAboutThat”more about that later</a>.

…and then later in the same document had this:

<h3 id=”moreAboutThat”>More About What I Said Earlier</h3>

…then clicking the link would jump down to this section of the web page. And it doesn’t just work with h3′s, it works with any element.

Of course, you can also create links to email addresses. You do that in the following format:

Feel free to <a href=”mailto:info@webifiable.com”>email me</a> if you have any questions.

In that case, the “mailto:” tells the browser to open your computer’s email program.

We’ll look more at hyperlinks next time, including opening links in new windows, and creating more functional email links.

Almost every ecommerce platform allows for inventory control. But they assume that your website is the only place you’re selling that option. When looking at how to coordinate with your brick and mortar store, there are a few different options.

Invest in an integrated POS system

You can, of course, invest in a new POS system. Talk to your current POS provider (or a new one) and see if they have options for integrating with a website. They may have a proprietary ecommerce system they’ve developed, or they may have add-ons and plugins for popular ecommerce packages that will automate the process for you.

Set aside stock for the website

You can, of course, just set aside items specifically for the website. This functionally treats your inventory for your website as totally different from your inventory for your physical store.

You’ll still be able to move items from the ecommerce site to the physical store when needed. You would just need to go in and update the stock on both systems when doing so.

Only list items when you have over X in stock

You might only list items on your website’s store if you have more than so many in stock. The biggest downside to this is that it is possible to sell out in the physical store, then sell some online, and not have enough stock to fill the order.

Clearly the integrated POS system is the best option overall, but there are frequently costs involved in the switching process. See which of these methods will be the best option in your specific case.

1. Sign up for an account at Twitterfeed.com

Go to Twitterfeed.com and sign up for an account. Just click on the big Register Now button, fill out the form fields, and click Create Account.

2. Enter your blog’s information

On the next screen, enter your blog’s name (something you’ll remember), and the address of your blog. If you know your blog’s RSS feed address, you can actually enter it in here instead. Either way, make sure you click the Test RSS Feed button to make sure it works. Then click the Continue to Step 2 button.

You may get an error message on this screen when testing your RSS feed. If that’s the case, you will probably need to enter your actual RSS feed address. If you’re using WordPress, you can just append rss to the URL. So if your website is http://whatever.com, you just enter in http://whatever.com/rss

If you’re using something other than WordPress, you might check their technical support to see what your RSS feed address is.

Note: You can click the Advanced Settings before going on and customize a lot of the settings. If you consider yourself a somewhat advanced user, feel free to do so. If you’re just a beginner, you can safely ignore those settings.

3. Select Twitter

Next you’ll be presented with a list of websites Twitterfeed will publish to. There are several to pick from, but we’ll do Twitter.

I actually recommend different services for the other websites. Twitterfeed is great at what it focuses on, Twitter. It’s not as good at the rest.

4. Authorize your account

Click on the giant Authenticate Twitter button. That will send you to the Twitter website. Sign in if you’re not already signed in, then confirm that Twitterfeed is authorized to tweet on your behalf.

Once it sends you back to the Twitterfeed website, you can safely ignore the rest of the fields and click the Create Service button.

That’s it! Now your blog entries will automatically be sent to your Twitter account. Just make sure you still check your account on a regular basis (or have it set up to email you), so you know when someone responds to your tweets.

I’m assuming two things:

1. You are not a technical guru.
2. If you find blogging for your business worthwhile, you may be willing to spend a few bucks down the road.

Number two factors in when we decide where to set up your blog. Because they offer an easy solution that we can set up quickly now, as well as a solution you can install right on your own website later, we’re going to go with WordPress.com. You can set it up there now, and if you decide to spend a little money later, you can essentially move your blog to your own business website, including any blog posts you’ve written.

Let’s get started!

1. Visit WordPress.com

Go to WordPress.com and click on their big button that says “Get started here.”

Wasn’t the first step easy?

2. Enter in your information

Time to set up some basic information. There’s not a lot of information to enter here, but some of it’s pretty important. Let’s take a look at what you have to decide now.

Blog address

With blog address, remember that this is what someone will type in when they visit your blog. If you already have a website with an address, I suggest using the same thing for your blog address. So, for example, if your website was www.webifiable.com, you would want to make your Blog address webifiable.wordpress.com.

If you don’t have a website with an address, just pick something short and memorable. WordPress may pop up and say your address is available as a domain name also. If you want to keep this process free, click on “No thanks, I’ll use the free wordpress.com address.”

One nice thing WordPress does is to tell you right away if your blog address is already taken. If so, it will give you some suggestions, but feel free to ignore those if you like and try something else on your own.

Username

If you have a standard username you use on most (or all) websites, feel free to use it here. If not, I suggest using the same thing you used for your address. And just like it did with your blog address, WordPress will tell you right away if your username is already taken.

Password, Email and Language

Make sure your passwords match each other, then enter in an email address that you have access to. You have to be able to check this email address, because WordPress will use to verify who you are.

Then make sure your blog posts language is accurate, and click the “Sign up” button.

3. Update your profile

This is pretty basic. Just enter in your first name and last name, and put a little information about yourself. If you’re lazy like I am, you can put something really short, or just copy your bio from a social media website like Twitter or Facebook.

4. Activate your account

Time to check that email address. Within just a few minutes (they claim it can take up to a half hour), you should get a verification email from WordPress with an activation link. Click that link, and it will send you straight to the backend of your blog.

5. You’re ready to go!

That’s it! Your blog is officially set up. Time to get started blogging!

Keep in mind that you might also link to your blog from your official website, and vice versa. That way people can easily find your blog if they visit your main website first, and people poking around on WordPress.com will be able to find your main website.

Back in September of 2009, Facebook introduced the concept of usernames. Instead of having some long, unintelligible URL for your Facebook profile or page, you could claim your username and get a simple, easy to remember URL.

So how do you claim your username for your page?

1. Get at least 25 people to like your page

Invite your friends on Facebook to like your page. In the right sidebar is a menu option that lets you suggest your page to your friends. Just click on that menu option, check the friends you want to suggest your page to, and Facebook will send them a message suggesting they like your page.

Once you’ve hit the magic number of 25 people liking your page, you’ll be eligible to create a username for your page.

2. Visit facebook.com/username

Go to Facebook’s Username page. Although they do have a link to it buried somewhere on your settings page, it’s much easier to simply visit http://facebook.com/username.

As long as you do have 25 people liking your page, your page name will appear in a dropdown menu on the Username page. Select your page, and then you can enter a username. Facebook will check if that username is available, and then give you a legal warning if it is.

Remember to pick something that will be easy for you and others to remember and to type in. Also keep in mind that once you select a username, you are stuck with it. And that’s all there is to getting an easy to remember URL for your Facebook page!

So is a collection of Encyclopedias, but that doesn’t necessarily mean someone will sit down and read every word from every book to get an idea of what information they offer.

The fact is, people rarely read web pages word by word. Instead, they SCAN it.

Yes, I said it. All that hard work you put in — to effectively communicate who you are and what you do and how you do it — and that’s the thanks you get?

It doesn’t matter what literary masterpiece you have on your home page. Most visitors won’t get through the first sentence without giving up and taking a (very) quick gander at the rest of your page to get the information they want.

Your visitors are looking for value, plain and simple. That means your site has to communicate the value it offers quickly and clearly.

How? The best way to do this is to increase your site’s scanability to keep their interest.

I think of it as online readability. Present your site in a way where any visitor will understand the purpose of your site at a glance. In other words, you need to reduce the content but increase the message.

I’m not suggesting you just delete a few words, paragraphs, pages, et al. Instead, try to promote quality content knowing that every word, image and even blank space has an important purpose. This can be done many ways using Headlines, bullet or list items, text formatting, images and clear navigation.

Here are 7 ways to improve your site’s scanability.

1. Try the inverted pyramid format

…when presenting information on the web. An inverted pyramid gives the main ideas at the beginning of the page and the less important items at the end. You can even apply this to a news story or article where the news and conclusions are presented first, followed by details and background information.

2. Don’t get long-winded.

Get to the point. Seriously, it’s not fun to read the boring details.

3. Consider using a simple graphic

…in place of an extensive “How this works” article with heaps of text. No decent amount of words would allow me to describe the intricacy of the steering design in a car to an average car owner. This picture really is worth a thousand words.

4. Use a juicy image.

Instead of writing “we have the best hotdogs around” followed by a description of why yours are better than any others, let a juicy image make it obvious.

5. Instead of stuffing every piece of information

…about you and your company on one page, concentrate on a single objective (replacing most of the text with images and using a balanced layout.)

6. Don’t use superfluous words to describe your site.

Use a combination of images, headers, lists, and even some balancing white space to direct your visitors to the point.

7. Use good formatting.

Last, but not least, use good formatting. Keep your visitors’ interest by making your headlines and navigation items obvious and relevant. Take advantage of text formatting (using bold and italics – but never underline) to draw the attention to important topics on your page. Only use the underline format with click-able links. And remember to stay consistent with your formatting throughout your site.

Does this only apply to your home page? Absolutely not! Make sure all the main pages of your site communicate a clear value and offer easy scanability. You will notice greater conversions (sales or leads), fewer visitors leaving the web page as soon as the arrive (“bounces”) and longer average visits. And that is what designing a good web site is all about.

The key is to use LinkedIn as a tool to know what and (more importantly) who you have in common with a prospect.

1. Find a potential client or customer’s profile.

LinkedIn’s search is, hands down, the best social networking search tool out there. It’s far better than Facebook, and Twitter doesn’t even come close. Time will only tell if Google+ will be better. They certainly have the resources. But LinkedIn currently puts all others to shame.

Use that to your advantage! Look up specific companies, specific industries, specific geographic locations, or any combination. Use it to find people that you would love to sell to.

2. See what contacts you have in common with them.

Again, LinkedIn makes this super simple by showing you your mutual contacts. This is especially useful if they are a second level contact.

Just take a look at their profile, and in the right hand column, you’ll see how you’re connected to that individual.

With any luck, you’ll have several people in common, so you can pick the person you know the best for the next step.

3. Pick up the phone and call those people.

Tell them you’re interested in doing business with the person, and see if they would mind giving you any pointers and even introduce you.

It may be that they don’t know that person extremely well. That’s okay, some people connect with people they don’t know well. If that’s the case, just move down your list to the common connection you know almost as well as you knew them.

Of course, this assumes that you’re building and maintaining a network of first degree contacts that you know and trust, and that trust you.

What are you waiting for? Follow this easy-to-use method and get a personal introduction to your prospects!

Here’s the guide to week one. Note that this may change slightly before publication time.

Your Introduction

Lucky for you, this first blog post is actually relatively easy. You’ll just be getting your feet wet.

In this first entry, simply introduce yourself. Let your readers know who you are and what you’re all about. Give them some basic background information and how you got into the industry you’re in. But make sure you balance that with information about your company, and the services or products you offer.

If your blog is going to establish your expertise in your field, you’ll want to talk more about your personal background as it relates to your field. If the goal of your blog is instead to educate potential customers, you may want to talk more about how you enjoy helping and educating others. If the goal of your blog is to establish relationships with others, you’ll want to talk about some relationships you’ve already had with professionals.

In other words, you’ll need to know your blog’s goal. Because from this point forward, you need to keep that goal in mind every time you write a blog post.

And don’t fret if your blog has multiple goals. If you’re like most bloggers, you want to establish yourself as an expert and establish relationships with others. And naturally, everyone with a business blog is expecting to, at some point, make money directly or (more likely) indirectly from writing weekly entries.

But every week that you’re writing, remember those goals. And this first week, balance the parts of your introduction as needed to accomplish your goals.

Oh, and make sure you include an illustration of some sort in each blog entry. The best illustrations are unique to your website. You can take photos or create illustrations on the computer yourself, or you can have a photographer in for an hour or so to take a bunch of photos for you.

In cases where that won’t work for some reason or another, you should consider getting stock images. There are inexpensive ones available on sites like istockphoto.com, and even free ones available on websites like www.sxc.hu and www.morguefile.com.

Remember, images you find through search engines are probably copyrighted. Simply pulling an image off Google Image search results is highly risky, legally speaking. And as a business, you’re much more likely to see legal action taken against you than someone using such an image for personal use. So play it safe, and use your own photos or legal stock images.

Since this is your first blog entry, have some other people read it before you post it. Send it out to family, friends and coworkers. Ask them if they can take a look, then answer the following three questions:

1. Do you see any mistakes?
2. Is the blog entry boring? (If so, any suggestions for making it more interesting?)
3. Any advice you can give a new blogger?

Once you do finally post the blog entry, be sure to let all your proof-readers know by sending them a link. You can also feel free to beg them to comment. I wouldn’t suggest begging in the actual blog entry, but since you already trusted these guys enough to get their feedback, feel free to ask them in the email.