Posted on Friday, 27th March 2009 by Lee
Businessweek.com is featuring a huge list of recent startups that include everything from a company selling wipe clothes for lead to a site that prints online blogs onto paper and distributes them. View it here.
Tags: business, startups
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Posted on Wednesday, 25th March 2009 by Lee
Entrepreneur.com has 4 places you can go to get help with starting your business, though these also look like good resources for those already in business just because of the information available at these sites, see the article here. They include:
1. SCORE: A nonprofit that provides free online and in-person mentoring via a national counseling force of 11,800 working and retired business owners and executives in nearly 400 chapters…
2. Small Business Development Centers: An expansive network of some 1,100 branch offices, delivering counseling, training and technical assistance in all aspects of small-business management. “Every startup needs three things,” says Kristin Johnson, director of the Northern California SBDC network. “A lawyer, an accountant and an SBDC advisor”…
3. SBA: Via the web and district offices, the SBA offers an array of tools and resources to help new and aspiring business owners succeed…
4. U.S. Chamber Small Business Center: This arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce provides comprehensive startup assistance via web-based tools and resources.
View the article here.
Tags: business, entrpreneur, help, Resources, startup
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Posted on Tuesday, 24th March 2009 by Lee
Allbusiness has a long 7 page article discussing the trend of businesses using Twitter, so if you’re like me and basically still haven’t jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, this is a great opportunity for you to check out what the big deal about Twitter is. They do mention a few clever things the big name companies are already doing on Twitter, such as Comcast providing customer support, and Dell provides the latest on hot deals and savings they are offering. Read the article here.
Tags: online marketing, SEM, social media, twitter
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Posted on Sunday, 22nd March 2009 by Lee
Startup Nation has a great podcast interview with Clay Olivier of Volusion talking about future trends in Search Engine marketing/optimization, arguably one of the most important marketing areas for Online Businesses. Listen to it here.
They bring up some excellent points regarding the new customization of searches google has been working toward, meaning what shows up in search for you may not be the same for the next person. This makes it even more important that you have multiple venues of marketing through many online media forms rather than the traditional SEM SEO work. Areas to expand your marketing activities beyond the standard SEO work into many “new” medias, be it twitter or online videos.
Listen to the rest of the podcast here.
Tags: online business, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, SEM, seo, startup nation podcast
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Posted on Sunday, 22nd March 2009 by Lee
Spotted this piece on yahoo finance that gives a brief overview on how to market to women. Given how important marketing is especially in these rough times, these would be some good tips to implement. See it here.
Major Turn-Offs
Not surprisingly, attracting women to your site has more to do with their shopping attitudes than just about anything else.
What makes a woman bail before she fills her shopping cart? One major shopping turn-off is high or seemingly unfair shipping prices. Many an online shopper has made it all the way to the last step, confirming the order, when she sees high shipping costs and retreats to a more shipping-friendly online retailer. If you think women shoppers don’t pay attention to those costs, try offering free shipping for a short time and see how it increases sales…
Major Turn-Ons
OK, you’ve discovered what turns women off when it comes to shopping your site, but what entices them to come in and spend money?
Contests are one big way, especially contests where they can come back every day and enter for a chance to win a prize. Make it a great prize, like cash, a room makeover, or a hot new appliance or techie item, and it will pique their interest.
You can read the rest of the article here.
Tags: business, marketing, women
Posted in Business Guides, Latest News | Comments (0)
Posted on Thursday, 29th January 2009 by Lee
The guys at Small Business Trends have put together a nice summary of some important trends for SEO in the coming year.
7. Content = Authority (Still)
Links are the currency of SEO, and content is what attracts the links you need to rank well. When you rank well, you have authority. If you run a service-based business, you must be giving away your knowledge and expertise in the form of articles, blog posts, or other unique content that will attract links. If you run a retail web site, this still applies. Follow Amazon’s lead; I think they’re the SEO-smartest retailer online.
8. Content Variety …
I mentioned Google’s universal search at the start of this article, and other search engines have also been providing blended results for some time. What this means is that the Google search results page is no longer a list of 10 web page links; it now includes videos, news articles, blog posts, images, and more. In turn, this means that SEO isn’t just about tweaking your web site; it’s about creating and optimizing whatever forms of content make sense for your business and industry.
Read the rest here.
Tags: marketing 2009, online marketing 2009, search engine marketing, seo, seo 2009, seo trends
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Posted on Tuesday, 20th January 2009 by Lee
An article from early last year shows us how Amazon’s add to cart had changed over the years as Amazon refined it’s strategy to increase sales.
Amazon doesn’t want customers to notice when they’re making changes like these.
Why? Because, for better or for worse, something as simple as an “Add to Cart” button can have a huge impact on the business. Amazon knows this, and they’ve built a culture of website optimization. It’s this foundation that’s made them one of the top-converting websites, month after month.
Read the rest here.
Tags: add to cart, amazon, amazon.com, cart button, increase conversion, increase sales
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Posted on Friday, 16th January 2009 by Lee
With the economic climate, everyone’s looking for ways to save money and time, including small businesses, so heres two interesting articles to help you with that. The first details 50 ways you can save money from marketing to the office supplies:
Office Overhead
13. Buy recycled printer cartridges. Check Google or your Yellow Pages for a local recycled printer cartridge supplier. Or if you want to mix your charitable instincts with your printing needs, visit www.lasermonks.com, a remanufactured printing supply company run by a group of monks in Wisconsin who, after business expenses are paid, donate their profits.
14. Fill it out for free. Instead of buying forms at your local office supply store or spending time creating them yourself, you can find tons of free forms online that you can download, customize and print. Our free forms on Formnet can get you started.
15. Get free software. Visit Download.com to try hundreds of software products for free through trial downloads, freeware and limited versions of the full product. Visit our Complete Guide to Software to find the best software options for small businesses, including many links to the free trials of those brands. Another tip: If you haven’t found what you’re looking for through Download.com or our software guide, check out the manufacturer’s site. Most offer free trial downloads.
Read the rest here.
And to help save you time, NYT is reporting that using two monitors can increase your efficiency by nearly 44% in some tasks. Read about it here.
Tags: entrepreneur, increasing efficiency, marketing, marketing tips, recession survival tips, save time, saving money, small biz, small business
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