Relevance, Recency, and Reputation.

‘Nuff said, but if you’re still unsure, check out the new book. It’s a quick read, like the others, and I think it answers a few questions some of you may have, including the infamous, “So what does Google really look for when it ranks websites?”

Please read it for free, and please pass it along to your network. Then please tell me what you think of it–did I answer your questions? Was it worth the price?

Thanks!Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
2. Online Marketing for Your Small Business: Networking and Social Media
3. How to Scale Your Social Media Efforts in Only 30 Days

This post isn’t about viewing your blog as a business—it’s about actually setting up a legal business structure for your blog. Why would anyone want to do this? After all, in some ways isn’t making money online sort of the “anti-business?” Well here are a few reasons you may consider setting up your blogging structure as an actual business:

• Tax purposes. Where I’m from (Texas—USA), I can either report my income from my businesses as miscellaneous income on a Schedule C tax form, or I can keep everything separate and report my different streams of income how I choose (quarterly, yearly, etc.). I like this option because it helps with my personal accounting to keep everything as separate as possible.
• Business purposes. If you have ever tried to get offline businesses to promote on your blog, they sometimes look at you like you’re insane. Some business owners in my area view blogging or any other online-based business as somehow less legitimate than offline business. If your blog is set up as a legal business structure, it may be easier to convince them that your blogging efforts are not just fun and games…
• Personal reasons. I found that creating a business name (DBA) and getting a separate bank account just for my blogging business helped keep me on track with my goals.

So how do you go about setting up your blog as a business structure? For me, it was dirt cheap and dead simple. I knew I wanted a sole-proprietorship since they’re the cheapest business structure available to me and easiest to get started. Taxation would be attached to my personal income, but I could have my own bank account and separate accounting for my business.

1. First, I needed to set up a DBA (Doing Business As) through my county clerk office. This cost me $16, and was required for the state to reserve my “business name” and get a bank account in that name. Next, I took the stamped DBA certificate to my bank and opened an account for my business with a $200 initial deposit. A week later, I had my very own business credit card linked to that account!
2. Another way of structuring your business is via an LLC or S-Corporation. These structures are generally more involved to set up and cost a bit more ($2-300), but they’re great for a more streamlined taxation route and almost a necessity for businesses with more than one owner (if you were to start a blogging business with a friend, I would recommend an LLC rather than a General Partnership). LegalZoom can help with the legal aspects of getting these structures off the ground for a pretty good fee.
3. Once you’ve legally registered the name of your business, you may think about getting a business account for your newly formed business. Wells Fargo has a good account at the time of this writing, but check out what the credit unions and local banks in your area are offering. You want an account that offers no required minimums and no monthly fees. Sometimes, you’ll need to set up an auto-transfer from a business checking to a savings account to qualify for no fees (a hassle, but you can often manually transfer the money back the next day!).
4. Finally, you’ll want to tell Google about your new business. If you don’t know what to put for your physical address, check into a P.O. box or just add Ste. 123 or something to your home address (I did this for the first company I started, and it worked like a charm!).

Once you’ve set up your business, you’ll be completely legal (at least in America!) to do business on or offline, and you’ll be much more set to approach offline advertisers who want to see some evidence before they invest in your blog. I hope this post got you thinking a bit about your ideas for business blogging, and if you have any questions, let me know!Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. How to Use Online Marketing to Make Your Blog Your Business
2. Online Marketing for Your Small Business:
   Bridging the Gap from Offline Marketing
3. SEO Basics: Geo-Targeting for Your Website or Blog

Driving down the road, I see a gas station sign that reads, “Clean Restroom.” Without a doubt, this is most certainly not the place I’m going to stop to relieve myself. I understand that it used to be (and maybe still is) a huge draw for travelers to have a “clean restroom” at service stations probably spread lightyears apart, but in my mind there seems to be a mental block preventing me from believing that particular sign. Business owners love to flaunt their benefits and features at us in order to get us to spend money with them. Gas station owners post “clean restroom” signs all the time, but what strikes me as odd is that I would rather stop in at a gas station restroom that didn’t advertise clean restrooms.

Don’t think that I have a fetish for nasty potties–I prefer pristine ivory just like the next bloke–it’s just that when you tell me, “hey, come here, our restrooms are clean,” I automatically tend to think, “restrooms are supposed to be clean–why wouldn’t yours be?” Maybe the restroom in question had some problems with tidiness recently, and they need to juice up their ego by reminded themselves–and you–that their bathroom is now clean. Either way, I’d prefer to visit the guy who’s always kept his bathroom the way it’s supposed to be: not dirty.

The correlation I’m trying to make can be summed up like this: Would you buy a Ford Pinto (that doomed little car from the ’60s and ’70s that tended to explode in rear-end collisions) if they started advertising that “Now they don’t explode!” I didn’t think so.

Would you buy the apple juice that says “Won’t get you constipated” or the quiet one that simply says “Apple juice?”

Or would you visit the country that advertises “You won’t get shot, mugged, or kidnapped here,” or the country that promotes its beautiful landmarks.

I see advertisements and marketing ploys like this all the time. We need to stop advertising our BAD QUALITIES in a GOOD LIGHT, and start advertising our GOOD QUALITIES in a GOOD LIGHT. Advertising things that are or used to be bad may work on a few skeptics, but the rest of us naive souls who didn’t know Pintos exploded or that gas station restrooms sucked are only going to wonder, “Hmm, are they telling the truth? What was it like before?”

If your product or business has an evil history, don’t flaunt it. Be honest and upfront about your past failures when asked and when compiling your company’s memoirs, but don’t try to entice your customers (who probably didn’t even know there was a problem at one point) by advertising a “fixed”solution.

Stop telling me you have a clean restroom if I already expect a clean restroom. That’s built in to my paradigm of restrooms–just don’t prove me wrong.

Stop selling me on the expectations I already have of your product. If you’re the best accountant in town, tell me why, don’t tell me why you’re not the worst anymore.

Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Why You Should Be Uncomfortable
2. Online Marketing for Your Small Business: Networking and Social Media
3. New Design

Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Why You Should Be Uncomfortable
2. How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy
3. How to Find Your First 3 Paying Clients

…And what gets managed gets improved.

In Gordon Bethune’s (CEO and champion of Continental Airlines) book From Worst to First: Behind the Scenes of Continental’s Remarkable Comeback, he writes numerous times about measuring those things that need to be managed. His reasoning states that if you don’t know where you’re struggling, you won’t know where to begin to fix it. Even though he is in charge of a multi-billion dollar company, the same approach can and should be taken in small business. For starters, most small businesses have websites. In order for your customers to find you, they need to be able to find your website. The basic concept of web tracking, analytics, and statistics is to figure out where your trouble spots are on your site and improve them. This forms the basics of SEO: search-engine optimization.

Google Analytics makes tracking and measuring who’s visiting your site very simple. With pretty graphs and easy-to-read information at hand, you can dissect who’s browsing, what they’re interested in, and where they’re coming from. While this information is great to see, it’s what you do with it that makes it invaluable for your SEO efforts.

Using data from analytics software allows you to provide more of what works and less of what doesn’t. If you have a page that is getting 80% of your traffic (80% of your visitors are reading what’s on it), and it’s not the homepage, you need to quickly find out:

• How they’re finding the page.
• What they’re doing on the page (are they signing up for a newsletter/RSS subscription/etc.?
• What you want them to do on the page (do you want them to sign up for a newsletter subscription/etc.?)
• Where they’re going after they do whatever they do on that page.
• Are they coming back to that page (called repeat visitors).

SEO involves analyzing the results of tracking information and applying the data discoveries to your marketing goals. In other words, by using data from past site visitors, you can manage future visitors. Tweaking and modifying your landing pages, sub-pages, and homepage to fit your marketing goals is crucial for any successful website.

If you’re struggling with interpreting the data from someplace like Google Anayltics, it may be time to hire an SEO firm or specialist. They’ll be able to help you examine the findings and show you where and how to increase the rankings for your site on search engines, but also should be able to help you get your internal pages optimized for the best conversion rates possible.

Be careful, though–there are many “SEO firms” or “SEO specialists” out there who really don’t know what they’re doing, and will essentially take your money after running you around and telling you nonsense about who’s coming to your site and what they’re doing. A good way to find out if they know what they’re talking about is to Google their information, name, or brand and see if they’re the first result to show up. A good SEO will properly optimize their own page and get great search-engine results, don’t you think?

Remember–measure, manage, and improve. The best managers don’t leave things to chance once they look alright–they improve on what’s working and get rid of what’s not. Sure, you shouldn’t fix what’s not broken, but a solid understanding of SEO will help guide you fix what can certainly be better!Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
2. SEO Basics: Geo-Targeting for Your Website or Blog
3. The Social Media Paradigm

I’ve been working on SEO (search engine optimization) to increase my organic search results for both my personal blog and website and my company’s website, mainly by focusing on tried-and-true SEO tactics and some newer ideas. My main goal for my blog is to improve in the SERPs (search engine results pages) for certain keywords (online marketing and social media related ones), but for my company, I want to completely own the SERPs on Google for one specific goal: I want anyone in my city (San Marcos, Texas) searching for “printing,” “web design,” or “social marketing” to pick up the phone and call me. In order to do this, I’ve been looking into some simple “geo-targeting” SEO tactics that you can use to do the same for yourself.There are countless ways to improve your rankings for organic-driven location-based search results, and I’m not sure of all of them. Chances are though, you haven’t really put much time into focusing on geo-targeting as an SEO strategy, or your SEO person or firm hasn’t made it a priority. For a start, try out these things and give it a month or two:

On-site optimization:

1. First and foremost, content is still king. SEO is based on one thing: proving to Google, Bing, and Yahoo that your site is important to the searchers. With this concept in mind, start building a database on your company’s website of articles, blog posts, links, and industry-related content that will “fill out” your site. SEO begins with content because without content, there’s nothing to optimize. Maybe there’s a way to tie-in your personal blog to your company’s site, or you can actually begin blogging for your company.
2. Pick out a few main keywords (not locations) that you’d like to target. You can choose a few that may seem more competitive, because you’re still going to be targeting a location or a region in addition to these keywords. For Higher Calling Media, I’ve chosen “printing,” “business cards,” “postcards,” “brochures,” “web design,” and “social marketing,” to name a few.
3. Categorize these keywords by order of importance. SEO is always easiest starting small, and doing this will help you determine which ones get header tags (<h1>, <h2>, etc.). Here’s my list:
   1. Printing
   2. Business Cards
   3. Web Design
4. Find some way to work both your geo-targeted keywords and your relevance keywords into your company’s site <title> tags. For me, my title should read “San Marcos Printing and Web Design” or something like that. In WordPress, this is as easy as installing the All-In-One SEO Pack and changing the settings around a bit. I don’t want to get too far into the details of WordPress SEO, but ViperChill has a GREAT overview of it. Read it and follow exactly what it says!
5. Work your other keywords into <h1> and <h2> tags (and sometimes <h3> tags), depending on keyword importance.
6. Use Scribe to help create extremely SEO friendly posts and content. It does cost money (they’re running a sale on it right now though), but it really is worth it. In addition to helping structure your content to target certain keywords, it also generates very intuitive tags and keywords for your META keyword box. Here’s a price breakdown:

“Scribe will come in 3 plan levels at 3 different monthly price points:

• Advanced: 300 evaluations a month (around 100 pages or posts) for $97 (they’re offering this package for $27/month until Friday, February 26th!)
• Publisher: 120 evaluations a month (around 40 pages or posts) for $47
• Starter: 30 evaluations a month (around 10 pages or posts) for $27″

Off-site optimization:

1. Use Google’s Local Business Center to add your company information for free to their directory. This alone will allow you to show up in Google Maps results listings for your geo-location.
2. When you create your listing, you can add coupons, locations, hours, and other great information, as well as videos and photos. Use these to get an edge over your competition. Google actually tells you how “complete” your profile is–get it to 100% and you’ll be in a much better position than your competitors.
3. Start building backlinks that include your location keywords as well as your relevance keywords. This will help Google know that you’re actually in a certain location, and it won’t hurt your organic non-location-based results, either.
4. As always, keep using SEO, social media, and other online tools to create buzz around your products, services, and general “happenings.” Every little bit counts, and with most things SEO, it may take a little while, but it will start to pay off for your business!

If you have anything to add or want some questions answered, just leave a comment below! I’d love to hear from you!Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Online Marketing Basics: 10 Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog
2. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
3. SEO for Business: A Quick Tip

Like me, you’re a small business owner. Maybe you’ve dabbled in marketing completely on your own, using things like business cards, postcards, and brochures, direct mail campaigns, and maybe even cold-calling to reach your customers. Maybe you even hired a marketing/advertising firm or had an intern designer working for you. Either way, if you’re like most small business owners and entrepreneurs, you’ve struggled with bridging the gap from offline marketing messages to online channels.Sure, you know that there are online counterparts to offline, traditional, marketing methods: electronic newsletters as opposed to monthly mail-outs, email campaigns instead of cold-calling campaigns, etc. The list goes on and on, but the one thing that most of my clients don’t understand is the difference between the two marketing methods: trust.

It’s Pull, not Push!

We’re in a world governed by what we want to know. In the good ol’ days, marketing folks sent out direct mail brochures, constructed billboards, and created radio and television advertisements, all with the same goal: get the message out to as many people as possible. This concept, referred to by Seth Godin and other marketing gurus as “Interruption Marketing,” needs to be thrown out the window when we’re looking at marketing options in online channels. The old “push” method of marketing and advertising is replaced online by the “pull” method of “permission marketing.” We are completely capable of finding what we want to know on our own. When we do find what we want and are ready to purchase, then–and only then–is the right time for a company to pitch the sale. Sure, we can try to be everywhere and anywhere and hope that someone in need of our products and services will come along, or we can be where our customers are and connect with them from the beginning.

For a small business with a limited offline or online marketing budget, this is the only way to go. We need to understand that our customers are engaging with each other on social sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and online forums, and we are welcome to the conversation. The key, however, is to not break this initial level of trust by “selling” right away (traditional marketing approach). Instead, we need to engage and help our audience find what they need, answer questions, and guide them into a relationship with our company. It’s called trust, and I have no doubt you understand the concept.

The rule of trust

When someone trusts us–even a little bit–they are much more open to hearing what we have to say, and may even begin to ask questions about our line of work, or our products. The online way of doing this is by seeking out the channels your customers want to connect with you, and entering the conversation, as a human, not a company.

Only after we’ve made a name for ourselves in that particular channel are we allowed to further the conversation into a relationship. Only after we’ve entered into a relationship are we allowed to engage in overt online marketing–or ask for the sale.

“It sounds like it takes time…”

And it does. Sometimes months, sometimes years. The beautiful part about it is that it really works. Companies like Dell, Comcast, and TuneCore have paved the way for two-way B2C and B2B interactions online, and they’ve used marketing online to take it all the way to the bank. Hard work, dedication, true understanding and caring for your customers will pay off.

If you are in the process or have thought about jumping into the conversation online, let me know. I love to talk business, social media, and marketing (online and offline), and I’m pretty good at finding the conversations for my clients.

I’m not selling anything, or asking you to pay me for consulting or building online marketing materials. Sign up for my free weekly newsletter first, and work through some of the troubles you’re having in your online marketing campaigns by following some of the things I write. I promise I won’t ever spam you, sell/give away your information, or take you for granted.

You just want to start a conversation, and I am too!

Subscribe to my newsletter here.Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Online Marketing for Your Small Business: Networking and Social Media
2. How to Use Online Marketing to Make Your Blog Your Business
3. Online Marketing Basics: 10 Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog

I attended a huge networking event today, and I really enjoyed most of what I was involved in. Austin is filled with great people, and passionate business owners, and lots of entrepreneurs who don’t know the next step. They’re considered (by me) to be very successful, and they know their industry inside and out. Still, though, they don’t understand the power of the Thing They’re Missing about online marketing. The Thing They’re Missing is what drives me to do what I do. The Thing They’re Missing is the Thing that could matter the most for their online marketing; the next era of small business, or the Thing that makes or breaks their business completely. For most, the Thing That’s Missing is not a website, or a Facebook page, or even an online newsletter–it’s the culmination of ALL of those channels, working together in tandem to create a seamless presence online for whomever may one day stumble upon it. Sound familiar? The Thing They’re Missing is part online marketing, part social media–a topic I love to soapbox about, because it’s what I grew up with.

If you met me yesterday at the Chocolate, Blues, and Business networking event, you’ll immediately remember one thing about me: I was younger than you. Sometimes by a lot, sometimes not so much. The key to what I do that sets me apart from the other guys who claim to be “social media” or “online marketing” experts is that fact. While I wasn’t around for the latest developments in your industries (health care, insurance, mortgage, etc.) I grew up with mine. I was there when Facebook was only open to college kids (I remember bugging Mark Zuckerman to let my high school have Facebook accounts). I was there when MySpace sucked (wait–it still does?). I was there when Twitter was just a twinkle in an addicted Facebook-status-er’s eye. I was there when that Thing They’re Missing was that Thing We’re All Missing.

In a not-so-small way, I built my online marketing/social media industry. Rather than having years of experience or multiple accredited degrees in traditional marketing that I’m trying to transfer into the digital space, I have years of experience growing up with newer and faster ways of creating, regurgitating, reaching, discovering, and sharing information. Throughout all of this, I’ve been listening to my friends, peers, and mentors about what works in the world of online marketing.

So–entrepreneurs–what do you do now? Do you try to find the Thing They’re Missing and apply it to your business by blogging, Twittering, Facebook-ing, and newsletter-ing? Maybe. For some, it’s easier to understand that privacy (at least superficially) is dead. The idea of “push-based” online marketing (or offline!) is dead. The concept of “interruption advertising” is dead. Stop Missing The Point with your online marketing and start listening to what your kids are telling you!

Right now:

• Set up an account at Twitter (in your own name, if you can; privacy is dead), and send out a Tweet about what you do.
• Then, search on Twitter for a keyword that applies to your industry with the “#” sign in front of it (#socialmedia, #marketing, #online marketing #insurance, etc.).
• Find and read some of the articles linked in the search results, and re-Tweet some of them that you like.
• Rinse and repeat at least 5 times today.
• And tomorrow.
• And the next day.

You’ll soon have a feed of Tweets that you’ve sent with keyword-rich hashtags (#) for others in your niche to see. After you’ve got a page or two of Tweets sent out, seek out some other people in your industry (start by finding the ones who originally sent the Tweets you re-Tweeted…). Follow as many as you can. This is the birth of your online marketing campaign–that’s it! Nothing else to do until you complete this easy task!

What you’re doing is building a network of like-minded individuals who are one step closer to trusting you (which is many steps closer to actually doing business with you).

Sound familiar? It’s called networking, and it’s not your father’s networking. We did it yesterday together in 3D, but this way is faster, bigger, and just as useful for your online marketing if you do it right.

Want more information on social media, online marketing, and networking? That’s why you should be reading my newsletter…Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
2. Online Marketing for Your Small Business:
   Bridging the Gap from Offline Marketing
3. The Social Media Paradigm

Studying online marketing to start “Blogging for profits” has long been one of the most interesting subjects I’ve ever come across. To me, things like online marketing and blogging to make money aren’t as simple as people make them sound, but they are intriguing.

“Just write great content that gets targeted visitors, and sit back and relax!”

The first part of that statement can be true, but I don’t plan on ever “sitting back and relaxing.” I’m a business builder; an innovator. My dream is to build something from nothing, whether it be a brick-and-mortar business that’s around long after I’m gone, or just a website that people actually visit for help and advice. The goal behind blogging for me was always to provide a simple, unobtrusive outlet for my ideas, thoughts, and imagination, but if I ever want people to sit up and take notice, I need to invest in learning some online marketing.

The problems started when I began to make some money with it.If you know me, you’ll know that I’m whimsical, capricious (yes, that word is in my daily vocabulary…), and spontaneous. My approach to all things blogging was for a long time, “I’ll do it when I feel like it… Maybe.” As I’m approaching an interesting intersection in my life, I’ve come to realize that maybe it’s time to crack down and take it to the next level. I’ve been pretty serious about it for quite some time, but I’ve only recently begun to treat my blog as a business in and of itself, and so I’ve only recently begun to think (and act on) small business online marketing principles. Here are some of the things I’ve done using social media and online marketing to make the “blogging thing I do” the “money making thing I do:”

• Systems. I bark a lot about systemizing every process possible, and blogging and online marketing are no different. If I didn’t set up a schedule for my posts every day, I wouldn’t ever release new content. Having systems in place helps me concentrate on building my business one “brick” at a time–opening me up to new opportunities and possibilities for my online marketing efforts.
• Plans. No longer will I run blindly into the night–I have specific goals for myself, my online marketing strategies, and my blog(s), as well as deadlines. Having (and following) these schedules and plans proves to yourself and those around you (readers, family, friends, etc.) that even though you may not be creating passive income now, you’re taking your job seriously.
• Measuring sticks. I call these “dipsticks” mainly ’cause it’s a funny word. Makes sense, though–if my blog is a car, I want it running smoothly, and I need to be able to measure what I’m putting into and taking out of it. I measure things like visitors, traffic, ad revenue, etc. Check your dipsticks, but not every time you fill up–put a system in place that tells you when you need to measure. Being a stats addict only takes you away from building your online marketing campaigns.

More than anything else, I needed to change my mindset. While this blog certainly isn’t the place to talk about personal development/personal growth issues, there are a great many out there that are. Take the time to read a few pillar articles on personal development if you struggle with procrastination, desire, drive, confidence, etc. I was able to see the light at the end of the tunnel for my baby-step goals, and each time I reached a goal, I’d increase the distance to the light–celebrating these little victories paid off: I was able to continue to drive forward to the bigger goal of using blogging and online marketing to sustain myself in a more passive way.

How does this apply to your online marketing efforts? Other than borrowing from my experiences, I hope you can boil everything down to this:

Steps to make your blog your business:

1. Picture your blog as your business. You go to work everyday, right? Well then, every time you site down, make something happen. Strive to complete one online marketing task every time you get behind your desk, or write one post, or whatever you consider “getting something done.”
2. Write out your goals. Enough said–do it. It’s an amazing, liberating experience to really find out what your goals are.
3. Plan your income streams. So many newbies I’ve talked to expect someone to start handing them checks one day–even with AdSense, you’ll need to plan how you’ll make money. Google may not be around forever (heaven forbid!), so do you have experience as a consultant? Can you write/sell eBooks? Can you sell affiliate products? A good combination of all of these methods is a good way to envision your site’s monetization. There are real ways to make money from home, but you’ll have to do the legwork and learn the ropes!
4. Detail your online marketing campaign. Once you know how you’ll make money, you need to get your product (your blog, website, whatever) in front of people’s faces. Online marketing isn’t necessarily difficult, but it can be overwhelming and a good place to start learning and applying principles is my weekly newsletter.
5. Plan your exit strategy. I’m in the weird position of having some great content that people have paid me to write, but I can’t sell my real estate. There’s only one other guy with my name who’s Google-able, and he sucks at singing anyway. The point: if you plan on selling your blog/website, pick a domain that you could sell…
6. Stick to the plan. Whatever your goals are for your blog, know them from day one and stick with it. Use social media methods and online marketing to get where you want your small business to be. Shoot for the moon, but be ready to settle for halfway there. As I like to say, it’s halfway to somewhere you’d never have gone anyway…

I hope my rant hasn’t been too much banter about nothing. If you’d like to drop me a line, you can do so in the comments or by contacting me directly!Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Online Marketing Basics: 10 Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog
2. Online Marketing for Your Small Business:
   Bridging the Gap from Offline Marketing
3. Online Marketing for Your Small Business: Networking and Social Media

Before I get into this post, I need to define what I mean by “social media” and “productivity” in this instance. First, by social media, I’m referring to your efforts to connect, share, mediate, and be relational online, whether for personal or online marketing reasons. I am including the use of social networking sites to socialize, social bookmarking sites to share your favorite information and resources, and microblogging, blogging, and forum-type platforms. Second, by productivity, I’m talking about how efficient and effective these efforts are. For example, I believe that it’s pretty easy to expand your social media reach online piece by piece by sending out Tweets each and every day, unsolicited, but you may not be as efficient as you could be. In the same vein, you may be able to convert a few visitors a day to your site/blog by sending these Tweets, but you may not be as effective as you want to be.What’s our goal here? Why look into the productivity of our Tweets? I’m only using Twitter as an example–this approach should apply to every “social media” or online marketing activity we partake in. Simply put, we need to analyze what’s working and do more of it, and find what’s not working, and cut it out completely or change it so it is. In traditional marketing campaigns, this process can be done through split (A/B) testing, focus groups, and old-school data-analysis. In the world of online marketing, the concepts are basically the same, but the social media methods are a bit more elegant and the results come (a bit) quicker. Let’s get started.

Step 1 – Break down what you’ve got.

Pick a social media channel–I’ll start with my blog. My blog only has about 30 regular readers on average. It sucks, but to me that’s 30 people a day who “seem” to care about what I’m writing here. As I started from nothing, building to a 30-subscriber count to me is a taste–albeit small–of success. Anyway, let’s break down what we’ve got.

• Who’s reading? FeedBurner makes it a bit tricky to analyze who’s reading, but judging by the comments I’ve received on the blog, I can assume most people who are stopping by at this point are bloggers, social media folks, and internet marketers. This is important data to me because I can either continue trying to reach this group of people by writing more about these topics, or I can focus on another sector by switching gears to something else.  However, just by understanding who’s reading shouldn’t be enough information to make that decision. We need to keep going to figure that out.
• Who’s responding? Who’s re-Tweeting? Who’s commenting? Who’s replying to your forum posts? Are they happy/sad/mad/whatever about your posts, or are they just trying to stir up conversation so you’ll go visit their site (by the way, visit their site–let them know you stopped by, and they’ll probably come back to yours!)? It’s not hard to tell who’s actively interested in what you have to say, and who just wants some cheap attention. Both reasons for responding are completely fine–but one isn’t going to be a lasting relationship.
• Who’s reacting? Is anyone on your blog or Twitter feed responding in a way that is fueling your conversation with the world? Look for re-Tweets of your messages from the same people, and reach out to them in the social media world more. Find those who ask questions on your comments pages and answer them publicly by writing a post in response to them. Reacting is basically responding with initiative–more than a “thank you,” and implying that they’re looking to you for advice, help, guidance, camaraderie, etc.

Once you’ve broken down your audience (your current audience, not your target audience), see if it aligns with what you envisioned for your social media and/or online marketing efforts. Are you reaching the people you need/want to reach? Are you getting the results (even if only on a minuscule scale) you intended? If so, move on to Step 2. If not, tweak your message and work extra hard to reach out to those who are your target audience.

Step 2 -Place measurement tools and checkpoints.

Once you’ve got a good idea of who falls into your readership/audience demographic, place the measuring tools within your reach. Using online social media tools every day can help you expand your network and keep up with your industry–giving you invaluable insight into what’s going on with your customers, competitors, suppliers, etc. Here are some examples of “tools” I use daily/weekly/monthly:

• Google Analytics – For my blog, I check in with my Analytics account daily. I want to see who’s visiting, where they’re coming from, and what they’re looking at when they get there. Also important to me are from where they’re exiting (exit pages), and how long they stick around.
• Hootsuite – For Twitter, I use Hootsuite almost exclusively now to send and read posts from all of my accounts–including those from LinkedIn and Facebook. Since I manage multiple Twitter accounts for clients, I like having the stats and dashboard for everything all in one place–and with only one login. Hootsuite also has a great built-in search function. I have live searches set up for things like #social media, #socialmarketing, #interpersonalskills, etc. Use the search function in whatever program you prefer to keep a tab on who’s saying what. Bonus: follow those who are coming up regularly in your searches, and re-Tweet their information liberally. Hootsuite can very quickly become your social media hub for checking in with your network(s).
• Google Reader – While I use NetNewsWire for my RSS subscriptions (because I can read them offline), Google Reader is a fantastic way to have everything under one roof. If you have an Analytics, Gmail, AdSense, or other Google account, Google Reader is a piece of cake to hook up. A great way to use an RSS reader is to do a Technorati search for the keywords that relate to your niche and subscribe (via RSS) to the results. They’ll show up right in your RSS reader every time it’s updated.

There are a million other social media resources out there for tracking and data analysis, but these are the most frequently used for me. Remember–burying your head in stats all day may enlighten you, but it won’t create your content or build your business for you. Keep it simple and you’ll be set.

Step 3 – Set up your systems.

If you’re like me, your motto is “I’ll procrastinate tomorrow…” Don’t let your good intentions go to waste by not acting on them. Set up systems for yourself that are easy to follow and reasonable early in the game, and try as hard as you can to stick with them. Here are some examples of my systems:

• Plan your posts/Tweets. For blog posts, I use the Blog Post Planners made available by ProductiveFlourishing. They give me a great tool to guide my blogging throughout the entire month for multiple blogs. For Twitter accounts, you can use Hootsuite or TweetLater (now SocialOomph) to schedule Tweets in advance. An excel spreadsheet is also a simple yet effective way to plan out your Twitter and online marketing/social media strategies. Most of what I plan in Twitter is on-the-fly, as I like to follow up quickly with RTs of great content from people in my network.
• Schedule your time. My daily schedule was so drastically different each day last year that I didn’t get nearly as much done as I could have. Just by having a single block of time daily for writing posts, I was able to completely turn around my business–and I’m still adding “blocks” to my schedule. By adding “blocks” one at a time, I’m able to still feel free and unhindered by an otherwise rigid schedule. Remember–as a blogger, you can work from wherever you want, whenever you want!
• Break the rules. After you’ve created and followed a schedule for yourself and your writing, stop following it for one day a week. Like dieting, your mind needs a day or two to completely indulge itself and recharge for the next week. Use that day to read something other than blogs, forums, and web stuff. I like a bit of fiction–maybe The Count of Monte Cristo?

Systems are a big favorite of mine. With systems, we can build an online business that is virtually run without our input–for some great examples of that, read Tim Ferriss’ The Four-Hour Workweek. Blogs can also provide a great example of an automated income stream based on systems.

In conclusion, it’s important to see your business from all sides: choosing keywords and targeting them through killer content can net you some profit, but it won’t go too far to build a network for you. Ideally you want to follow the set of rules the SEOs have set forth to optimizing your blog and website for keywords, but use the social media tools to help people trust you. A killer online marketing, branding and social media strategy involves both SEO and social media working together simultaneously. Don’t leave out one or the other!

As always, I want to provide this information free of charge in exchange for your readership–I’d love for you to leave a comment down there, and I’d love it if you signed on for more cool stuff like this. My RSS feed is here, and my free weekly newsletter is here.Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. The Social Media Paradigm
2. Online Marketing for Your Small Business: Networking and Social Media
3. Online Marketing Basics: 10 Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog

As I grabbed my computer this morning to “just check everything,” I had a revelation: what if EVERY time I picked up my laptop or sat down at my desk, I consciously tried to make something happen? Rather than just “check in” with what’s gone on since I last left the interwebz (inevitably not long enough ago that anything dire or severe has changed), what if I made a distinct effort to actually get something done?

Since this is a business blog, how can you apply this to your business? Honestly, there has to be something that you can do each and every time you sit down at your desk, walk into your office, or start up your computer–something that gets you one step closer to finishing that massive project, or something that gets you closer to landing that major client.

This something could be infinitesimally small–a response to an email–or larger. These “somethings” could be enough to snowball into finally finishing a huge project, or enough to just keep you going until it is done.

Either way, by admitting that you won’t sit down to just check the things you know haven’t really changed (analytics, revenue streams, even emails) unless you get some real work done, you’ll be able to recognize those times when you just want to jump on the computer to waste time and those times when you’re really engaged enough to get something done.

I hereby require that I get something done whenever I get online–and you should, too…

Your thoughts?Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
2. Why You Should Be Uncomfortable
3. How to Use Online Marketing to Make Your Blog Your Business

Ramit Sethi, author of the blog I Will Teach You To Be Rich, writes in a fantastically annoying, yet sincere, way. His posts usually make you think, most make you act, and all give you advice that actually means something.

In a blogosphere full of crap like my blog that just link to other posts blogs that don’t give you anything but lofty, idealistic verbiage like “work hard and write great content!” it’s no wonder there aren’t as many “successful” blogs and businesses compared to the ones that stink.

Anyway, here’s the great post and an excerpt from it:

“Example that made me angry: Last night, someone said they were going to start a wedding-montage photo business. What should they do? They appeared to be stuck. Answer: Go talk to a few wedding photographers and ask them if this is a good idea. Would their customers buy it? Are there holes in the market that are not being served? What about event planners? Florists? You could do this in 1-2 weeks and save 1 year of your life.”

Want to earn more money? How to find your first 3 paying clients | I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Ramit explains how to find your first 3 paying clients–no small feat if you’re just getting into business! Enjoy!Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
2. Why You Should Be Uncomfortable
3. 7 Ways to Land Clients With Social Networking

Where Does Social Media Fit In With Your Marketing | TSA Digest – Technology, Science & Automotive News.

Great stuff from tsadigest. Read it and get moving!

“Social media does not replace all of your other marketing – it just changes the mix.”Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
2. The Social Media Paradigm
3. Online Marketing for Your Small Business: Networking and Social Media

I just Tweeted about this earlier, but I thought I’d share it here too. It’s got some great advice and helps clear the air about the “professionalism” (or lack thereof) of using social sites for business purposes.

Don Reisinger writes well and knows what he’s talking about too. Be sure to leave a comment here AND there after you read!

10 Tips for Becoming a Smarter, Social Business Person.Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
2. Online Marketing for Your Small Business: Networking and Social Media
3. Where Does Social Media Fit In With Your Marketing?

Well, it might not. But there’s a good chance that it does. Good ideas aren’t all it takes to start a successful something, but it’s usually a good start. When I penned my first ebook, Ideas that Don’t Suck, I listed several questions to ask yourself to quickly sum up your idea for viability. Why only quickly? There are plently of marketing and entrepreneurship textbooks out there that can give you a plethora of questions to ask and worksheets to finish before you’ll truly know if your idea is worth its weight. But we don’t have time to assess ideas in our day-to-day life–we need a faster approach.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, claims that as humans we have a natural ability to “thin-slice” people, ideas, and concepts. Basically thin-slicing is a rapid split-second decision process that Gladwell claims can effectively be used to “sum up” something–the genuineness of a sculpture, the emotional state of a marriage, or a battle strategy. Quick thinking and quick action has been reprimanded as a “ready, fire, aim” strategy that only leads to failure, but Gladwell makes a pretty impressive point. Check out the book if you can.

I’m furthering his application of thin-slicing to include business ideas. When you see a problem, you can use these questions to effectively sum-up the situation–not necessarily to definitively decide if it’s a great idea, but to determine if it’s worth revisiting at a later time. Here are the questions, straight from the ebook:

• What is the business model (how will you profit from the idea)?
  • GroceryMapper.com (see, I’ve already chosen a cool, “Web 2.0”-type name!) will be advertisement-driven, specifically from grocery stores themselves. Ads (store coupons) will show around the “map” section from the grocery store the user has selected.
• What is the target market (who will buy your idea)?
  • Busy individuals who don’t spend lots of time shopping, but like organized, planned-out instructions (on a side note, I would think this service would be free for users, and grocery stores would pay for their own inclusion.)
• What is the estimated cost and time-to-market?
  • Maybe $2-4k would be spent on developing the site and its technology, and it may take 3-6 months to develop a working prototype. Add in the business infrastructure needed—maybe 6 months to 1 year.
• Is it scalable?
  • Sure, the site could launch initially on a regional level, and eventually scale to encompass a national or international market (“busy” people exist all around the world).

What do you think of these questions? Have you had any ideas that were spur-of-the-moment and needed to quickly assessed? What are some questions you used for the process?

Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Mexico Manufacturing: Is It a Good Idea?
2. On Ideas – How Far Should We Go?
3. Why You Should Be Uncomfortable

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve updated the site, and I thought a great way to get me back on track was to update my layout and design. I’m hoping to adapt my newsletter design as well to match the site and overall brand. Part of the problem I’ve been facing is how to go about updating everything and still maintaining a somewhat professional look and keep the profitable AdSense layouts I’d been using. I’ll keep you posted.

Here’s a business tip: decide as soon as you have a name for your company whether it’s going to be labeled as “professional,” “catchy,” clean,” “cluttered,” etc. You don’t want to be spending hours redesigning and updating your brand and theme just to change it all again two weeks later…

Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. 10 Tips for Becoming a Smarter, Social Business Person
2. 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses
3. Turn Your Blog Into A REAL Business

Marketing is essential to any business, whether online or off. Countless books have been written on creative and clever ways to market, but which ones work and which ones leave your business stranded? In this post, I’ll examine some ways to market yourself, your business, your blog, or all of the above—with a twist: they are all FREE!

1. Tell people. Okay, okay. You’ve heard this one before—telling people about your business yourself is the easiest and freest way of generating business, but you shouldn’t just tell anyone and everyone. You need to hone in on your target prospects by analyzing your target market(s), and pick a profile that you can approach and start a conversation with easily (if your business is a blog, figure out what your readers want, and use that as your market profile). Once you’ve decided on a person type to target, find someone you know who fits that profile (i.e. someone who could benefit from what you offer). All that’s left is to tell them about you and your company!
2. Online promotion. Use forums, social networks, and Twitter to promote what you’re doing. The key to online successful marketing is offering value to a network in return for a long-term relationship with that network. If you offer a free downloadable ebook when they sign up for a newsletter, you’ll be able to cultivate the relationship over a longer period of time and in turn sell more to them.
3. Ask for referrals. One of the best things you can do for your business is ask your current clients who might benefit from your products or services that they know. If you plan ahead and prepare a letter asking for referrals, all you have to do is maintain your relationship with the client and simply send them the letter somewhere during your business transaction. Provide an easy way to get back to you, either by supplying a self-addressed & stamped envelope or by providing a form to fill out that you can pick up at their convenience.

These are just three dead-simple ways to promote your offering. You know your business best—which small business marketing methods will work for you? Try out these methods and others you know of, and add your ideas here!

Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
2. Online Marketing for Your Small Business: Networking and Social Media
3. Online Marketing for Your Small Business:
   Bridging the Gap from Offline Marketing

If you have something of value–whether it’s a product prototype, intellectual work, or simply an idea–you may have wondered how legally secure it is. If you are interested in copyrighting your work(s), this post is for you! If you need to copyright a song, copyright a website, or protect your idea before you register a patent, hopefully this post will answer some questions.First off, copyrights are not required to be filed with any Copyright Office or official location. You don’t need to pay to register your copyrights, either. However, there are some benefits to registering your work with the Library of Congress or the Copyright Office, namely, that you’ll be able to back up your work in court if it came down to it.

Whenever a work is completed and secured in some tangible way–as a recording (for music and spoken word), as a document, or as a web page–it legally belongs to the creator of the work (unless some other arrangement has already been made to transfer ownership elsewhere). According to SmallBusiness.com, copyrights protect “original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.”

If you’re interested in registering a trademark with the United States, check out http://www.uspto.gov/teas/index.html, and you’ll be able to file the application directly online.

More information regarding patents, copyrights, and trademarks can be found at:

• SmallBusiness.com
• United States Copyright Office
• United States Patent and Trademark Office
• Copyright.gov FAQ

Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Turn Your Blog Into A REAL Business
2. Promoting Your Business: Free Marketing With Social Media
3. Online Marketing for Your Small Business:
   Bridging the Gap from Offline Marketing

Put simply, if you are comfortable, you’re not growing. If you’re not growing, you’re dead.

In business, if we aren’t growing, our competitors are. Our clients are getting restless. Our employees are getting bored. Our profits are getting stale.

In blogging, we are losing market share to other bloggers, and in turn losing readers, subscribers, and customers.

If you are comfortable, you’re used to being comfortable and not used to change.

If you are uncomfortable, you have to change.

So what are you?

Remember–the more comfortable we are, the more drastic of a change we will be ready to make.Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. Turn Your Blog Into A REAL Business
2. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
3. 10 Tips for Becoming a Smarter, Social Business Person

Steve Pavlina writes that we must be “web savvy” in order to be able to maintain a successful blog for our small business. As an entrepreneur, you should consider investing some time and money in getting some of these skills under your belt. From StevePavlina.com:

“Web savvy

What do I mean by web savvy?  You don’t need to be a programmer, but you need a decent functional understanding of a variety of web technologies.  What technologies are “key” will depend on the nature of your blog and your means of monetization.  But generally speaking I’d list these elements as significant:

• blog publishing software
• HTML/CSS
• blog comments (and comment spam)
• RSS/syndication
• feed aggregators
• pings
• trackbacks
• full vs. partial feeds
• blog carnivals (for kick-starting your blog’s traffic)
• search engines
• search engine optimization (SEO)
• page rank
• social bookmarking
• tagging
• contextual advertising
• affiliate programs
• email
• traffic statistics”

Other Popular Posts:

• The Definitive Guide to Making Money Blogging (7610)
• 10 Online Marketing Tips for Offline Businesses (4002)
• 5 Internet-y Things Your Business Must Have (3956)
• New Book! (3625)
• How to Generate More Business In A Struggling Economy (3074)

Related posts:

1. How to Use Online Marketing to Make Your Blog Your Business
2. Social Media Influence: 3 Steps to Boost Your Social Media Productivity
3. Turn Your Blog Into A REAL Business