Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 16, 2012

Like it or hate it, Facebook’s Timeline is here to stay, at least, until they decide to make another change. You can leave your page as it is, or you can make use of some of the new components, and some of them could be fairly handy. If you don’t make use of them, you could be wasting a good opportunity to promote your business. Some of the new components that businesses need to be aware off include: Popular content – you may need to be careful about the type of content you pub

Facebook 117

Facebook Reputation Price Review 117

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 23, 2012

Reputation is an important factor for any online business. One of the hardest task for any online enterprise is developing trust, especially if you are asking for credit card details with the promise of delivery via snail mail. If a potential shopper feels there is a risk to their personal data, they will not stay and shop. If you have a reputation for poor quality, poor service, and poor communication, shoppers will also turn away.

Reputation 114

Reputation Privacy Applications Social Media 114

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 13, 2012

Much is written about social media and how it can be used to market your business. In some cases, social media can be very effective, in others, not so effective. Sometimes, we are simply looking at social media in the wrong way. LinkedIn is a good example. A recent report suggested that Linked delivered more lead than Twitter, and in some niches, I am sure it does.

Small Business 112

Small Business LinkedIn SEO Social Media 112

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 9, 2012

We often talk about on-page SEO and off-page SEO, but rarely do you hear much spoken about server side SEO. Server side refers to the servers that your website sits on, much of which is controlled by your web hosting company. Shared servers (where you share a server with other web sites) are more affected than those with dedicated servers, however, they too do need an understanding of the basics of server side SEO.

SEO 110

SEO Hosting URL Software 110

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 30, 2012

There are tens of thousands of blogs that are suddenly finding they no longer ranks in search results. The reason is quite clear – Google has well and truly slapped several link/blog networks and the results have been startling. Some small business owners are suddenly finding themselves ranking well for their major keywords. It’s taken a long time, and too a certain extent, the problem has been one of Google’s own doing.

Google 105

Google Small Business Engineering Publishing 105

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 29, 2012

Customer reviews can be pure gold if they are left on third party websites. Their downfall is that they are only available to readers of that third party site. Unless that website is Twitter. Twitter has become a great source when it comes to reviews and recommendations, and they don’t have to be wasted, you can make use of them. If you have a website or blog, then you can embed individual Tweets into your pages.

Embedding 105

Embedding Review Twitter Reputation 105

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 24, 2012

There has been a lot of discussion of late surrounding comments made by both Google and Bing representatives related to the ‘over optimization’ of web pages. To begin with, Google has been active in fighting ‘over optimization’ for a long time, it’s nothing new. If you have a new website that suddenly has thousands of inbound links, this will raise a flag with Google that somethings amiss, and you’ll most likely find your web site on page 99 of the search res

Domain Name 105

Domain Name Engineering SEO Issues 105

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 12, 2012

If you have a web site, blog or use email marketing , and your objectives are go gain conversions, then you should be using call to action statements. The problem with some websites (and emails), is the way the page is written to kill those call to action statements. So how do you ‘kill’ a call to action? Are you guilty of using these tactics: Overkill - having too many call to action statements can turn a reader off.

Sites 105

Sites Conversation Marketing Content 105

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 10, 2012

Frank Reed has written an interesting post on Marketing Pilgrim that highlights where blogs are now going in the business world. Nielsen’s NM Incite is currently tracking over 173 million blogs – that’s a lot of blogs, many of which you will need to compete against. The key to success is keeping your blog up-to-date and keeping it relevant to your visitors.

Small Business 105

Small Business Compete Forums Issues 105

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 2, 2012

Small business owners often have access to a large group of people who could be considered ‘authorities’ in their niche. Every supplier that deals with their business has some authority, and small business owners can make use of that authority to increase their own authority, and the authority of their business blog. The process is very simple too.

Small Business 105

Small Business Authentication Groups Groups 105

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 20, 2012

Small business owners often feel a little overwhelmed when it comes to advertising online. Banners are not big converters, social media can be time consuming, and paid search expensive. When a small business owner does run an advertising campaign, the most common complaint we hear is that their campaign was a complete flop. What makes matters worse is that many of these businesses do see a remarkable increase in traffic to their websites, they just don’t see the same sort of increase in s

Small Business 101

Small Business Paid Search Compete Advertising 101

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 11, 2012

Social media marketing started as a real hit and miss affair. Over time it has slowly come together and social media experts can now really work the boards to drum up a lot of visitors. For small business owners, there are five faces of social media that can be made to work together to promote your business – and they really are starting to gel into one complete marketing tool.

Social Media 101

Social Media Small Business YouTube Hosting 101

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 5, 2012

The online business world is very different to the offline business world – at least, that’s what many business owners feel. In reality, the two are not so different. Sure, your contact with customers is very different, but in many areas, managing each business is very similar. Business manager from both sides are only interested in one thing – growth in both sales and profitability.

Small Business 101

Small Business Patterns Sports Statistics 101

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 26, 2012

Is SEO still relevant? Some would argue that search engine traffic is becoming too difficult to target and that the current algorithms have made it harder for small businesses, particularly new small businesses, to rank well. I would argue differently. Search engines are slowly moving away from the traditional signals used to rank web pages and moving more towards the social connections that businesses make.

Small Business 98

Small Business Price Reputation SEO 98

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 19, 2012

Whilst blogs and blogging has its detractors, there is no doubt that a small business blog can be a real benefit. Blogs can be an aid to both a search and social marketing campaign, however, it often helps to simplify things to gain a clearer picture. In their simplest state, blogs are communication tools. Tools that initially, appear to be only one way, however, over time, they can develop into two way communication tools.

Small Business 98

Small Business Marketing WordPress Publishing 98

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 18, 2012

Marketing a business can be a time consuming job. When it comes to using a professional, you can generally break businesses in to their traditional sub-groups. Small businesses do it themselves, medium sized businesses retain consultants, and big businesses employ part or full time marketing professionals. It’s also fair to say that big business, when employing professionals, recruit a mix of experienced and new recruits, whilst medium sized businesses look to experienced professionals who

Consultant 98

Consultant Marketing Small Business Skills 98

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 17, 2012

Most online businesses publish content in two places – their website and their blog – it’s a standard online marketing strategy. You will often see references to publishing content in article directories, Facebook, HubSpot, Squidoo and perhaps even on other blogs as a guest author. As your business grows, there are more opportunities to publish content – on site rather than off site, and by doing so, you deliver a more professional appearance to visitors.

Publishing 98

Publishing Repository Joomla Content 98

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 8, 2012

I came across an interesting statement recently and it has been fermenting in my mind ever since. The article on Search Engine Watch related to Pinterest and how to get the best from the new social media site. However, the contents in general were not what got me thinking. It was really one line near the end of the article, namely: Gerencser said he doesn’t care about bounce rates all that much ……… “I’d rather have them come to the site and leave than never have come at all,

Statistics 98

Statistics Buy Engineering Price 98

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 4, 2012

Are eCommerce websites any different to a standard website or blog when it comes to SEO? You would think that a website was a website and that SEO is similar across the board. In essence, SEO is similar, however, different types of websites do need to concentrate on different areas of SEO. Ecommerce websites often include content that isn’t permanent, for example, product descriptions – these are often removed once the site discontinues that product.

SEO 98

SEO URL Issues Price 98

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 3, 2012

Come March 30, the Facebook Timeline rollout will be complete with all business pages also sporting the new look. There are positives and negatives to come out of this change. One of the big negatives is the loss of the ability to set an app on the front page. While this may reduce the number of people being added to emailing lists, it can also be seen as a positive – many users resented the appearance of apps when visiting, especially first timers – they wanted to get to know your b

Brands 98

Brands Facebook Sports Small Business 98

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 1, 2012

Google made 40 changes to it’s search functions during February. A record for Google apparently, even if many of the changes are very subtle ones. Of interest to many small business owners will be the changes made to local search. This is one area that Google has worked hard to improve, and for many small business, the results have been very encouraging.

Google 98

Google Small Business Compete YouTube 98

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 6, 2012

One of the follies of many small businesses is to assume that organic search engine traffic derived through a strong SEO program is all that is required to succeed. For some businesses, a combination of paid and organic search traffic does produce the best results. However, these are not the only channels to deliver potential customers. If you are highly visible to your target market across the Internet, then that visibility could deliver far more traffic than paid and organic search.

Marketing 87

Marketing SEO Small Business Organization 87

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 31, 2012

Blogging is old hat. Everyone blogs now so it’s no longer viable for my business. These are just some of the excuses that some business owners use when it comes to blogging. Unless you live on social media sites like Facebook, and publish reams of content day after day, a blog is still the single most effective way to communicate with both current and potential customers.

Small Business 107

Small Business WordPress SEO Publishing 107

Small Business Mavericks

MARCH 15, 2012

A post on the Bing Webmaster Central blog is well worth reading if you optimize your website for both desktop and mobile users. The post discusses Bing’s preference for a single URL no matter what device a visitor is using to access your website. There are several points worth noting on the post, and while this post relates specifically to Bing’s approach, one wonders if the same issues exist with Google?

Mobile 107

Mobile Small Business URL Engineering 107