According to their web page, Sphinn is “a social site for search and interactive marketers. It is designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others.”

Sphinn is similar to Digg in terms of search marketing. If you want to broaden your online marketing and visibility, this is definitely the site for you! Despite its weird spelling, it is pronounced as “Spin”.

Danny Sullivan launched Sphinn in late 11th of July 2007. The site has a lot of exceptional functionality despite its newness. It has easy to use features and not so complex interface. Sphinn accepts a variety of content, discussion topics, and forums from site users.

The site takes after the same interface and almost the same use as Digg where users submit a story and other users can vote on whether they like it or not; they can “sphinn” it for yes, and “desphinn” it for no. Once a story is “sphunn” a lot of times, it will be featured in the front page of Sphinn and is immediately visible to anyone who logs in to the home page except for posts submitted to the Water Cooler category, which no longer have the ability to hit the main page. Stories submitted to Sphinn can also be discussed by members on the comment portion of each post.

Here are the different important tabs you can see at the Sphinn interface. The Hot News tab is the first tab you will see when you come to the site. It serves as the site’s home page. In these page, you will see news stories and discussions that the Sphinn admin have chosen to feature.

The next tab which is the Comments tab is obviously for the comments all Sphinn user make in real time. You can freely link it to your site as well. The good thing about this is that you can choose in this page which comment you want to get involved with. It has a neat rss feed and a crisp timeline to boast. It gets updated every time a user comments on a blog.

Submit News Tip is the super tab where you read news stories. Do you have a news story you want to share to the site? You have a lot of options in which way you are going to share your own piece. For newbies who have not joined yet, it has an awesome option that you can always submit to the news editors via Twitter. Include “tip @sphinn” in your tweet and our editors will review your link as if you submitted it directly at Sphinn.

The Discussion tab is somewhat like a forum where you can interact with other users with the same level of business and interest. You can always start a topic yourself, give the topic a title and classify it in the right category.

Here are the top features that you’ll love when using Sphinn with your online business…

Getting Started at Sphinn is such an interesting experience for everyone. You can always read the articles on Sphinn without setting up a profile, but for you to leave comments or “sphinn/depshinn” anything, you need to join. On your profile, you can either use an avatar or a profile picture, and you can add in all your personal infos like your IM names like AIM or MSN in your social media profiles like Facebook and Delicious.

Do You Love snooping on Your Friends? Prospect Clients Perhaps? Your Competitor as well? Snooping is a very interesting process on Sphinn. Users that love to check the home page for new posts and love to interact with other users can easily do so. It lets you monitor in real time what others are posting or submitting. Sphinn also helps keep track of all of your social networking profiles since you have an option to link it to them.

The What’s New page is where you can find the freshest content updated in real time. The more experienced you are in online business as well as in marketing the more you will be able to decipher what is good and what is not with the kind of content you encounter.

Now, how do you submit an article to Sphinn? How does Sphinn work best with your online business? Making use of outstanding networking tools will definitely help you achieve your business goals in the process. This platform gives you the chance to show off your abilities and achievements. A business that has good credibility and is run by someone who knows what he is doing is surely the one who succeeds. Credibility indeed leads to better relationships between entrepreneur and prospect customers and loyal customers as well.

This shows up on search engines which makes your business findable when searched. It is also highly established in Google. This is definitely good news since Google is the most commonly used search engine. In this way your business will rank well eventually. Just never forget to set your profile to public otherwise the search engines will not be able to list you.

There are a lot of areas in your profile where you should provide all the necessary details in order to describe in detail the kind of business that you have, what markets you cater to and how you will be able to help them. You will need to add details about you and your business in your profile.

Choose the best photo that will make an impression on the users that when they see that icon they will think of your business. This is commonly called branding. By maximizing the use of your profile this will help other related business to link to your profile as well. Making use of the updates you should be posting regularly by syncing it to other social sites like Facebook and Twitter, this will increase the impact through the systems of all three sites!

when starting an online business, you need to have a system that is time tested and flexible enough to grow with the coming changes of the Internet. The web is very unpredictable. We tend to think otherwise, and there are many things that one can predict about the Internet such as – one day images will be able to be crawled for content for the search engines. That is a tangible objective technological advancement.

What is much harder to predict is what the online culture will come up with, this is much more subjective. Facebook and Twitter seem somewhat obvious now, but they were not so a few years ago.

We cannot expect search to always work the way it does or that it will be the preferred way to find information online in the future. I guarantee you that people are trying to come up with data scraping and sequestering technology that will undermine Googles hold on search.

A flexible, scalable and tested online business system built on code fundamentals is the key to secure and long lasting success on the Internet.

Do you have an online business system that converts visitors to paying customers? If you could use a little help in this department, read on.

First, tell me where you talk about the benefits of your product or service.

Raise your hand if you said up front.

Most people think so. They figure the customer is looking for ways to benefit from your website, so you should spell out those bennies right up at the top.

• However, I want to show you that it doesn’t work that way. In fact, place your benefits and solutions at the top, and you risk losing your visitors’ attention.

This may sound counter-intuitive, because putting your benefits and solutions first seems logical. Answers are what your customer wants, and you’ve got them.

So why wait?

Here’s why: You risk losing your readers’ attention.

Your visitor is asking themselves, what’s in it for me? He’s looking for signs that you know what bugs him, frustrates him, or drove him to the Web in the first place. That’s when you need to establish a connection.

This happens in a very simple way, when you recognize their problem and articulate it from their perspective.

Your reader isn’t looking for your opinion. She knows you understand her perspective, and that is the crux of this biscuit. More importantly, she won’t leave your website while she’s looking for more information about a solution.

Why? Because he or she doesn’t feel like they’re being pushed.

Nobody likes that. You aren’t laying out your answers — not yet. Do that too soon, and your visitor feels pushed, not pulled or compelled along by his own volition. At this point, don’t break the spell you created by showing you understand their perspective.

People want to feel in charge of their own decision-making process. You know precisely what I’m talking about if you’ve ever been confronted by a pushy salesperson. Obnoxious, right? In order to get your visitor on your side, you’ve got to establish a genuine connection by getting on theirs.

After you have explained the problem, it’s time to mention a few solutions. Evaluate them, point out their pros and cons. Don’t talk about yours — not yet.

{Whistling}

Okay. Now you can talk about yours.

But only after you have done all of the above. Follow this sequence correctly for the best results in your online business system. (System is the operative term here!)

Point out the benefits, the ways in which your customers’ challenges will be solved by your products, your service, your membership site. Explain the features of your product and clearly connect the dots between your product and how it addresses their problem.

Don’t skimp on that last step. You might think it’s super apparent that your product is the answer to their frustration. However, you must spell it out so they don’t miss it.

Steps to follow:

1. Align with your customer’s needs by articulating their challenges from their perspective.

2. Lay out solutions, everyone’s but yours.

3. Convey the benefits of your solutions. Help your visitor make the link that your product makes their problem go away.

Have you used this method in your online business system? I invite you to leave a comment if you have. I love hearing from all y’all.

When you start an online business, should you announce it with a press release? Isn’t blogging about it enough?

Some very smart and worldly PR people suggest that press releases are outdated and useless, claiming that nobody reads them anyway.

Others contend that writing a press release is a neat way to clarify your own understanding of your business — the who, what, why, when, where, and how.

We use press releases as part of our online business system. They’re very helpful, especially when it comes to promoting an internet business. We see predictable sales spikes and increases in subscribers to our membership sites whenever we put out a press release, usually the very day it gets published.

In addition, first-time visitors to your website can view them as a way to take the temperature of your business — see that it’s still up-and-running, and scan them to check out your latest announcements. They’re looking for relevance to their business.

Remember, your visitors are always asking themselves: What’s in it for me? Press releases are handy because they put the focus on the benefits for your subscribers.

The reasons for writing a press release have changed.

When it comes to building online business traffic, the press release should be embraced as part of a vibrant SEO strategy.

A press release can:

• help spread the word about your web business quickly across the Web
• maximize your visibility on search engines
• increase the number of visitors to your site from news searches
• establish enduring links on other relevant websites
• generate publicity

If you want to try including press releases as part of your online business system, here are a few things to keep in mind.

3 tips for writing a press release:

• Write for the web. Use bullet points, make it easy to scan, and watch your Flesh-Kincaid score. Keep it at the 8th grade level. You may think this is low-balling your customer’s cognitive capacities, but it isn’t. We’re pretty smart in the 8th grade.

• Only include pertinent information. The press release is an opportunity to announce “official” information, such as a deal that was made, a change or addition to your business, a product launched. Give your reader a link to your “about us” page (or another relevant page) on your website.

• Add attachments — videos, docs, pictures. People are more likely to click on these to learn more about your announcement. They’re also more prone to share compelling videos and pictures with their friends and colleagues. These PR packages cost more, but they’re worth it.

Have you found press releases useful, or do you think they’re outdated? If you have tried using them in your online business system, please leave a comment about it. I love hearing from you

The Ninj and I are busy creating and adding new products to our websites.

When we first started our online business system in 2004, making a living was our main goal. However, making a living isn’t simply about money, is it? Our plan was to run a small business in a way that would make us proud. Above all, we wanted to provide a valuable service to others. Call it a mid-life imperative, no crisis here. Being of service is what it’s all about.

We looked around for role models that spoke to us, and found something even better. It’s not a person, it’s a philosophy. The single most crucial element that’s helping us define our strengths and needs, expand our business, and continually increase our financial security is the Integral philosophy. Integral is a system being used by leaders across the disciplines worldwide — in politics, business, education, healthcare, art and more. I’ll say more about it in future posts. For now, I just want to show you how helpful it can be to have an efficient, elegant online business system in place.

Many web business owners have figured out that blog posts can be collected, repackaged and sold as a new product. This is what we just did on one of our websites. It’s significantly increasing membership and sales on one of our websites.

However, it’s not simply the choice of posts that are making this product a bestseller. The genius lies in the way it is organized. The organizing principle is just as important as the information itself. We learned how to organize our material from studying the Integral framework. But like I said, more about that later. The proof is in the pudding, and that’s what I want you to see.

So. Here’s a snapshot of the work we’ve done recently…

For two weeks I gathered blog posts, hand-picking only the most succulent, ripe ones like berries.

Blog posts store a wealth of useful information. But they’re dated, they’re shriveling in the sun. Any writing done prior to today’s posts looks like yesterday’s news to readers. We know that yesterday’s newspaper isn’t good for much outside wrapping fish or lining the bottom of the bird cage.

Yet the information held inside the posts are like gold nuggets hidden in silt on the river bottom. Someone willing to sit and pan for gold could collect a small treasure.

But who has time to sift through hundreds of posts?

Your readers? Nuh-uh. Some of them will, a teeny percentage. But even if your readers like, or even love your latest post, they’re not likely to spend time looking in your archives. They’ll wait for the new stuff instead.

We could tell from the comments made by our blog’s readers that new readers weren’t digging into the past, so we did it for them. We sifted and gathered all that gold into one organized package — a new product to offer on the site.

How long did it take?

Now, you should know that on the website I’m talking about, we enjoy a continuously expanding membership because we regularly add value and more resources to the site. However, some people are simply not the joining type. They aren’t likely to become members, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want the information they would find there.

Herein lies the beauty of the new product. We offer the new product as an alternative to the non-joiners. A lot of us aren’t joiners, right? We want to duck in, duck out, and leave with something useful tucked under our arm.

There’s another nice benefit to this. Since launching the new product, site membership has also increased. We really prefer to give a new product at least three months until we can start to gauge a pattern or see any changes. So fingers crossed.

The result is so far, profitable, yes, and that is a good thing.

But what feels even better is that — because of our study of the Integral framework, our online business system — we know we’re offering a product that is fundamentally useful and unique.

Oh, and just in case this is starting to sound like some sort of miracle, overnight sensation, here’s the thing. It only took us one week to put the new product together. However, the embedded energy, effort and hard work that went into it took five years.

The new item is priced midway between the other products and services available on that website. It fits snugly into the middle range of a service that we offer at different levels, starting at free and ending at a higher price for premier members who receive access to benefits that aren’t available in the free category.

What sort of online business system do you use? Is your system reaching all of your customers, or only some? Please tell me about it in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

This morning the Ninj and I experienced an internet business disaster.

Not a mere gaff, not just an error. A full-blown, stomach-clenching online business system catastrophe.

What happened?

Our server disappeared. Our Web site vanished. Putting the URL into the browser bar wasn’t bringing it up. Trying a different browser wasn’t bringing it up.

Gah!

Reboot all three computers.

Still not coming up.

Internet service seems to be working fine. Every other Web site we try pops right up. Every one, that is, except ours and our host server.

OK. It’s FREAK-OUT time!

Is it our computers?

Can’t be! Ninj calls the host to check. They are able to access both their Web site and ours. Relief. How odd!

Good news, but baffling.

Must be our ISP.

I have to tell you, if there is one aspect about our Web business that neither of us cherish, it is communicating with our beloved ISP – Charter Communications.

Todd Rundgren has a pretty humorous song about this – “I Hate My Frickin ISP“. Hopefully, one day Google or its ilk will come to our rescue and give us all free Internet access. But I digress.

So after an intense hour of systems checks and phone calls, we confirmed that it was a problem with our ISP. Against my will, I got on the phone to Charter Communications, ready to pummel them with questions. While waiting for a real-live person…

Our catastrophe self-corrected.

Correction took about one hour. Had we been away at the gym, a bookstore or coffee shop, we would have remained blissfully unaware of the problem. Ignorance can work sometimes.

Now that my heart beat has resumed its regular speed

…and everything is back to normal, it’s time to reflect on our little wrinkle in the fabric of the online universe. It’s motivated me to write an article with a check list about how to make your internet business secure. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s up.

Our Web business is over five years old. It has proved far more secure than any other job I’ve ever had.

However, for some weird reason, running a Web business still feels surreal.

It’s still a brave new world online for businesses such as ours that are completely information-based. Like it or not, we’re on the cutting edge.

• We don’t have a brick-and-mortar store.
• We don’t ship books.
• Our customers receive access to information via a password.

When it comes right down to it, we are simply pixel pushing in the noosphere. It’s all data in the cloud. Talk about faith-based initiatives!