Posts Tagged small business
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Cleanup
There are lots of ways that you can help.
oil spill photo by geri-jean via stock.xchng
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will have far-reaching effects.
People, our environment, our economy, few things will not be effected by this disaster.
What can you do to help?
First, beware of thieves and scam artists who prey upon unsuspecting people after a disaster. Just like there have been many times before, there will be those who aim to make personal profit out of someone else’s misery. If you make donations, make sure you know the organization you send your money to, and what they will do with your donation.
Second, do some creative thinking and some research; if you can’t afford to go to the shore for several weeks and volunteer to help with the clean up in person, search the Internet for non-profit organizations to which you can support with donations for supplies, food for volunteers, and shelter.
- Think about the products or services that your small business provides; could they be put to use to help with the cleanup? Maybe something like this offer from Cool Shopping Ideas.com.
- If not, you could ask your business partners and employees to submit their ideas for how to help, take up a collection, send it to help a worthy organization.
- To get your creative thinking going, consider these other suggestions in a related Tonic.com article.
Every day, we have a new opportunity to make a difference, to do something good. This is a large opportunity to help, and the rewards will be great.
Share your comments and suggestions. Maybe you will inspire someone else with a way they can help, too! And, Thank you!
Improve Yourself and Your Website.
Posted by admin in Getting Started, Internet Marketing / PPC, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Networking on May 7, 2010
Who wouldn’t like to meet new friends with a common interest and learn how to improve their website?
A recent article on behavior by Kathleen Doheny (http://bit.ly/cSeUHu) in AAA magazine “Going Places” shared that scientific research has proven that, not only do people tend to associate with other people who are like themselves, but also that there is a direct effect of the behavior of the other people we associate with regularly on our own behavior.
Michelle Chance-Sangthong, talented owner of Redhawk Strategies, and leader of our Jacksonville SEO Meetup brings a group of friendly people together each month, people who also have an interest in improving their websites and in helping others in the group by sharing ideas.
If you live in the Jacksonville, Florida area,
come join us at our next meeting for an evening well spent.
If you live in another area,
just go to the Meetup website and search for a group near you. This is a great way to make new friends in your area with a common interest.
Backlinks Help Your Website
Posted by admin in Link Building on April 23, 2010
Backlinks are hyperlinks back to your website from other websites.
You want your website to be ranked highly by search engines, so your site will be found on the first few search engine pages, and then visited.
How many other websites link to your website (how many backlinks you have) is one of the ways search engines evaluate the popularity of your website.
And backlinks from related websites (topics that are pertinent or similar to your website’s topic or could be connected to your website’s topic) are better than large numbers of links from unrelated sites.
- Example: if your site is Bob’s Tree Service, you would want backlinks from chainsaw vendors and nurseries more than a link from a roller skating arena, but it is better to exchange links with fellow business partners in your community than not.
Anchor text (the words the reader sees in the hyperlink) are important to your readers and search engines, too. Put descriptive words for readers to click on and search engines to follow. Make sure your readers see a connection from the anchor text words they clicked on to the page they reach (or they will think they were tricked and leave).
- Example: Instead of a “Click Here” link, use anchor text like “Contact Jax SEO Works“
- or “T-Shirt Bordello has a great selection of stimulating tee shirts“
- or “Key Theory develops very impressive websites“.
If you found this article helpful, you might also want to read:
Make New Business Leads with Discussions, Questions, and Answers
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Article Comment Benefit
Posted by admin in Link Building on March 6, 2010
Your business can benefit if you take a few minutes to comment on a blog post, an article, or in a discussion.
This process can be informative as well as helpful to your business. The more you comment, the more it helps.
How does this work? A portion of the basis for your business website’s ranking by search engines is the number of hyperlinks to your website. More links from related websites = better ranking. (For example, it would be better for your yoga website to have more links to it from articles about natural health and exercise equipment than from articles about motor oil.)
And discussions, posts, and articles from related websites can share knowledge that can be helpful to you and your business. And if you leave interesting, helpful, and informative comments, the others who read your comments will want to come to your website to find out more about your business.
Some blog posts, discussions, and articles have “do follow” links for their commenters. This means search engines will follow links in those comments to the commenters’ websites, and the commenters’ website will get credit for a link.
Video provided by YouTube.
There are some general rules for “nettiquette” (Internet etiquette) for leaving comments.
1. It’s nice to give your own name (or just first name or nick name) and what you do, but not to give your name as your product (“Zoomo Potato Peeler model 3.1″).
2. In your comment, respond to something specific about the post. If you agree, add to the conversation (from the article and the other commenters). If you disagree, try to express some aspect that you do agree with, and then try to disagree in a nice way, just like you were at a meeting and talking with others in person.
- It is NOT OK to just say “Hi! Nice article. Thank you!”
Brief comments like that with no content do not add to the conversation, and will probably not get posted.
“Do follow” links are part of the Web2.0 change and the social media evolution, in which the Internet becomes a place for exchange of your ideas and concepts.
Building backlinks (links back to your website) from related websites is part of a good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plan for any website.
Do you have some other ideas for building links back to your small business website that have worked for you ? You can share your ideas with others here. We’d like to hear your thoughts.
Help your website grow your business ! Contact Jax SEO Works today !
Start a blog on your small business website!
Posted by admin in Content Development, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Networking, Website Development on February 1, 2010
A blog can be a part of your social media program, a way to reach out and begin communicating with your web site visitors.
Your blog post can share something interesting, helpful, believable, and sometimes even something funny.
Pick a topic for your blog that you can relate to your small business. Your blog topic should be something you know about, or you will have to do research just to find subjects to blog about. For example, if your buisiness installs gutters, consider blogging about home improvements.
Do some research on the Internet.
- Find out which blogs / bloggers are rated most popular for your blog topic.
- Read some popular blog posts.
- If you can add helpful information to the discussion, leave a comment and a link to your web site. (It is considered bad manners to just leave a comment like, “Nice article.” or “Very informative.”, followed by your name and web site link.)
Your blog posts can mix in a little marketing, advertising, and promotion, and should always include an easy path for web site visitors to contact you for more information.
Your goal should be to make new posts on your blog on a regular schedule, for example two to three times each week. Regular posting also adds new content to your web site, which both visitors and search engines like to see.
What do you think ? Do you have any other ideas to share ?
Like some help improving your small business web site?
Contact Jax SEO Works today!
If you liked this article, you might also enjoy reading:
Marketing your Small Business with Blogging.
Social Media can help Promote Your Local Small Business.
e-coupons for your business ?
Posted by admin in Internet Marketing / PPC, Resources, Social Media Marketing on December 26, 2009
Does the thought of your small business’ coupons going into a recycle bin make you cringe ? Maybe it’s time to try a new approach – Groupon.
e-coupons for small businesses ? What an idea !
I just read about the concept in Kunur Patel’s recent article, Groupon Takes Coupons Into the Social-Media Age. Currently offering deals in 39 cities across the United States (including Jacksonville, Florida), “Groupon e-mails a daily deal per city and consumers opt-in to buy a restaurant gift certificate, a health and beauty service, or entertainment offer at typically 50% off face value — say $30 voucher for $60 dinner or $50 for a spa package. Once the deal has hooked a predetermined number of people, everyone who has opted in then “buys” the deal, and the marketer gets the money minus Groupon’s cut, which is usually 30%-50%, according to Groupon founder Andrew Mason. It only works if the deal attracts critical mass, however — if the offer doesn’t reach its threshold, the deal is canceled and no one pays, not even the provider. (The threshold varies by advertiser; some deals require only 50 people to buy in, others need 500.)”
How’s that for environmentally friendly ? Less paper to recycle.
We can help your website market your business better ! Contact Jax SEO Works today !
Make New Business Leads with Discussions, Questions and Answers
Posted by admin in Internet Marketing / PPC, Link Building, Resources, Social Media Marketing on December 26, 2009
Take a look at LinkedIn Discussions and LinkedIn Answers; if you can contribute to a good discussion or help answer even one of the questions, your comment can also introduce you to new, potential customers.
If you are in small business, now is a good time to post your profile on LinkedIn (if you haven’t already).
Next, join a group in your industry on LinkedIn, then look at their current Discussions. If you can add to the discussion, it is a great way to network and meet new people.
And then take a look at LinkedIn Answers. Like Jason Falls says in his recent article How To Drive Business Leads With Question & Answer Forums, “People are driving leads using Question and Answer forums like LinkedIn Answers, Yahoo! Answers and Answers.com. . . . In essence, the best practices (theirs and mine) remind you to be helpful first, don’t go in trumpeting your sales pitch and focus on long-term relationship building and benefits rather than seeing a sudden influx of leads because you clicked a button on a website. Nothing is that easy. It’s like being at an off-line networking event. You work at it a while and you get results.”
And you can use the same principle at other open forums.
Get started by reviewing the questions. Find one that you are interested in and then do a little research, so that you can include some references in your response. (The answer that you provide with references will be much more impressive than sharing your best guess at the answer, and will make a better impression for you and your business.)
Want to help your website market your business better ? Contact Jax SEO Works today !
Social Media for Small Businesses
Posted by admin in Social Media Marketing on October 21, 2009
Joining the Social Media generation can help you to meet new clients.
Statistics show that more and more Americans are routinely using social media like Facebook and Twitter. Social Daily News and Small Business Daily (as featured by SocialNetDaily) articles support the concept that small business should join the growing arena of social media.
Since “many aspects of current social media are niche interest based, which is to say that they focus on people with a shared hobby, knowledge base, or frame of reference, you can easily locate the clientele who will be most likely to give you their business.” (Social Daily News)
But the social media concept for businesses is to first develop a relationship with these new potential clients, be friendly, share good, helpful information, and then (every once in a while, just like on television shows from fifty years ago would say, “And now for a word from our sponsor. . . .”) share information about your product or service.
And make sure that your occasional social media announcement makes the benefit to these people clear to them. You only have the first few sentences of your announcement to get their attention.
This Youtube video gives you a lot of information about the shift in social media, in just a few minutes.
(Video provided courtesy Sarah E. Harper and Youtube.)
Let Jax SEO Works help you into the Social Media generation. Contact us today.
Quick Checklist for Small Business Website Advertising
Website advertising is the way to share information about your product or service with others.
If you had lots of advertising money to spend, you could use word-of-mouth, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, Yellow Pages telephone book, and outdoor (bill boards) ads to let people know what your company has to offer, but for most small businesses, the Internet has proven to be the most popular and responsive media, the best investment for their advertising money.
Some people say the first place to spend that advertising money is on a good Yellow Pages telephone book ad. Research studies show more people are turning to the Internet search engines to find out about a product or service they need. Put your ad in a telephone book and it stays like that until next year. Put your ad on your website and if you want to change it, you can change it in a few days, maybe even in a few hours.
Here’s our quick SEO checklist:
- Match your website ads to your target audience.
- Use one company message (slogan) in all of your adds, so website visitors will associate your company and your message / slogan.
- Keep your ads brief, interesting and believable.
- Create ads which will make your website visitors curious to get more information about your product or service.
- Provide easy paths for website visitors to contact your company representatives (telephone numbers, e-mail addresses).
- If you are investing in several forms of advertising, conduct simple evaluations to see how well your different forms of advertising are promoting your product or service.
(For example – for several months, ask all of your new customers how they heard of your business, product, or service; see which form of advertising is bringing the most return for your advertising investment, then check again in a few months.)
Want to share any more ideas that have worked for you ? We’d like to hear from you. Please post a Comment.
Contact Jax SEO Works and start improving your website advertising today.
Marketing your small business with blogging.
Blogging can help market / advertise your business product or service.
A “blog” (contraction of the terms web log or weblog) is a category of website where brief articles are posted periodically. In addition to text, the posts can contain photos / images, graphics, or even videos.
Many small businesses use blog posts to tell visitors about the products or services that they provide. They make their blogs interesting and informative. They post new articles on a regular basis, to keep visitors coming back to see the latest, or to subscribe to the business’ RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed from their website (so the visitors can see the new blogs as they are posted, without having to go to the business’ website). Then these website visitors buy those products or services.
Blogs can bring more visitors to your website, more customers to your business, and that means more opportunities for sales.
Just remember : When you write a blog for your business, you want to share information about your product or service that sounds:
- intriguing,
- exciting,
- curious and/or unusual (but true),
- and is easy to understand and remember.
video provided courtesy :Youtube.com
Does your business use blogging for marketing and advertising ?
We can help you improve your website. Contact Jax SEO Works today to get started !