If you’re serious about SEO, then your website design should reflect your concern for getting high search engine rankings and thus driving plenty of targeted traffic to your website. Here are 5 considerations to keep in mind as you’re building an SEO-friendly website.

1.Target Audience. Who exactly is your product or service for? How old are they? What are their other interests? What phrases and idioms motivate them to spend money? What problems are they trying to solve? If you can’t answer these questions, then you…

There’s no denying the importance of maintaining a good website if you want your small business to get ahead. SEO is certainly critical for the success of your business….

If you’re dedicated to making search engine optimization (SEO), and the content you place on your website, work to your benefit, you need to understand how the different elements….

You are a small business owner with a vision and a passion. You are engaging and motivating to others and you know exactly how to use social networking sites to engage potential customers and increase the likelihood that you will make a sale. But admit it, you’re not the world’s greatest writer, and you’re not winning any awards for website design. And that’s where the trouble lies. Your website shows the world exactly what kind of professional you are. If it’s sloppy, poorly written, or disorganized, then potential customers will assume that you are sloppy and disorganized. Yes, doing your own internet marketing can feel like quite an accomplishment, but you haven’t accomplished much if visitors to your site leave as quickly as they came. Here are 4 reasons you need professional help.

Your Website. While websites are relatively easy to build, great websites are created by professional designers who have years of experience. And to build a great website you need great design, great copy, outstanding search engine optimization, and a stellar marketing professional. Once that’s in place, your website will do much of your work for you because it will…

It seems that some business owners are reluctant to start business blogs for a variety of reasons. Some are afraid that they’ll burn out and lose followers after working hard to get them. Others are afraid that they won’t have anything to say. Still others are afraid that the time commitment will be too much to manage. If you’re one of these people, stop making excuses and start blogging! Here are 9 keys for successful business blogging.

Have a Conversation. The point of a blog is not to lecture, nor is it to push your products and services. Instead, the point of a blog is informal, informational communication in which your readers can learn more about you, your products, and all that your business has to offer them. By engaging potential customers in conversation, you give them the opportunity to learn to trust you, which increases the likelihood…

As a small business owner, you know how difficult it can be to determine appropriate prices for your goods and services. Ask too much and you’ll turn customers off to your business. Ask too little and you’ll be shortchanging yourself. The key to pricing all lies within the psychology of the consumer. Here are 8 strategies for playing into consumer psychology and coming out on top of the pricing game.

Promoting Satisfaction. If you haven’t done this yourself then you probably at least know someone who has…joining a gym that offers a one-time fee, going for the first few months, and then quitting only a few months after joining, even after paying for a full year! When consumers pay for a service regularly, say once a month, they perceive that service as having more value than a service they pay for only once. And when they perceive that it has value, they will continue to use it. Keep your…

It’s no secret that we’re in a severe economic crisis in this country. What does this mean for you as a small business owner? It means that you’ll do well to follow the lead of internet business owners who experienced a similar downturn in 2001. At that time they chose to focus on search engine advertising rather than display advertising because search engine advertising allowed them to keep a close eye on who they were marketing to and whether or not their strategies were successful. Businesses now are facing a similar dilemma. They need to spend less on advertising than in the past, and one of the ways to do this is to focus on…

If you own a small business, you may have already given up on the notion of branding yourself. After all, that’s something that only big companies with big budgets can afford, right? Not so fast. Here are 5 ways to brand yourself for free, and maybe even make a little bit of money in the process:

1. Develop for Display. If you can create visual brand that stands out from the crowd and looks hip and edgy, you can actually get people to pay you for the privilege of displaying it. Extreme sports companies like surfing, skating, and snowboarding companies have been doing this for years. The challenge is…

If you are the owner of a small business, it’s not news to you that you simply can’t put the same amount of money in your marketing budget as can large, multinational corporations. The good news is, however, that you can level the marketing playing field by embracing word-of-mouth marketing. Word-of-mouth marketing works to your advantage because nothing is more compelling to a potential customer that hearing rave reviews from a current customer. Social networking has taught us that most people make their buying decisions based on what they’ve heard from people they trust.

When you embrace a word-of-mouth strategy for marketing your product, you’re investing in…

Owning your own business is difficult enough without having to worry about finding the perfect balance of marketing strategies. Stick solely to traditional marketing strategies and you’ll find yourself potentially missing an enormous demographic. Try to milk the internet for all it’s worth and you’ll find yourself completely overwhelmed by the number of tools and application available for internet marketing. But what if you used social networking sites as a happy medium between traditional and hard-core internet marketing strategies? Using this one tool could make a huge difference in your business without overwhelming you altogether. Here are 5 ways to get started using social media in your marketing strategy.

1. Create a Strategy. Your competitors have already created a strategy for using social media, so chances are you’re already behind. This means thinking intentionally about how to use social media instead of randomly opening an account here and joining a group there. Spend some time determining the kinds of sites available and evaluating what role they might have in your marketing strategy. Then make a plan to…