There is an old adage that seems to have been lost in recent years: Business is about relationships.

With so many transactions going on the Internet these days, there has been a sort of disconnect that has even affected face to face dealings in the past five years, especially.

But with the rise of social networking and the way so many companies have been using it to touch base with customers and potential customers, that is now changing once again and the world is going back to normal.

While it is important to utilize social networking for your customer base, that isn’t where the tool ends.

Sites such as LinkedIn have shown that social media can also be used to network with others in the business world, building those ever important connections and relationships that can move you further up the ladder and better establish you as at the top of your game.

Networking During Conferences

Perhaps the best time to establish these connections is during conferences.

You have access to hundreds, sometimes thousands of others in the same or similar fields. Business cards have always been the way such things were handled. But think back to the last time you went to a conference and collected those cards; how many did you really keep in touch with? Social media makes this ever easier.

Instead of just taking a card and trying to remember each face and detail, you have a way into the business life they have portrayed online.

Not only that, but you give them similar access and a way to easily share you to others, increasing the range of your network with expansion capabilities never known before.

Tips To Best Utilize Social Media For Networking

* Prepare Ahead Of Time

You should already have a business only social networking account, or several.

Whether that is LinkedIn or the more casual Twitter, it should only be used for business purposes, and all personal interactions, such as friends and family, should remain on a different profile. This will make it easier for you to start mentioning the conference ahead of time, without it being lost in the fray of updates and comments. Try mentioning it a week in advance in order to spark some conversation.

Then, put together a list of four or five companies/contacts that you would especially like to meet up with there, and alert them personally.

* Update Regularly

Not every contact or relevant business will be at the conference, but that does not mean they aren’t important networking targets.

Update your profile regularly with anything from the conference you can. Write status updates about what is going on, leave interesting links to articles you know on subjects being discussed, or even post some cell phone videos and pictures.

Make your profile the place to go for info on the conference, and then use that to make connections with new people who were not in attendance but are in your field.

* Use Google Alerts

It might be the professional equivalent to stalking, but for those more important contacts you can set up Google Alerts to monitor major news or activity. This will keep you up to date before going to the conference, which will help you to not only break the ice, but be better prepared for any business discussions that might be necessary.

* Post Q&A Answers

After most lectures and presentations, there will be the all important Q&A portion of the event. Write down your questions during the talks and try to get them answered, then post the answers on your account.

You can also keep track of what other people are saying, and post that, as well. This is a good way to share information and bring further contacts to your profile.

* Keep In Touch

Once you have built a fair amount of contacts on your social media account, engage them.

On LinkedIn you can be supportive and professional, and more casual on Facebook and Twitter. Keep up with blogs and really engage them in conversation on a regular basis.

If you keep up with it, it is a simple way to build a business relationship that can mean great things for future collaborations or contact.

Conclusion

Social networking has provided us with an unprecedented way of communicating with people from all over the world. When it comes to your business, one of the best things you can do is use it to make connections and maintain them.

Next time you have a conference coming up, prepare early and then use it as a useful tool. You will be pleased with the results.

Photo credit: dsc.discovery.com

About the author: Olivia Sherwood is a social media marketer blogging for PsPrint, an online printing company specializing in brochure and poster printing among other popular services. For further information on the company, you can follow PsPrint on Twitter.

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Everyone’s looking for the next best thing.

Companies everywhere want better conversion rates, higher quality customers, and more efficient sales processes.  Naturally, most start looking around at what the competition’s doing.

Often, when I’m strategizing with a client about conversion and usability of their site, the client will say, “Let’s just copy Amazon.”

The client’s rationale is that Amazon has already spent millions of dollars testing different options and scenarios, so they clearly know what works.   This is true – Amazon has invested millions in gathering data, and they’ve earned millions back by implementing what they’ve learned.

However, you are not Amazon.

Your company has different challenges and demographics than Amazon does.  You’re comparing apples to oranges.

Here are 5 reasons why you should give additional thought to the idea that Amazon’s model will be right for your business:

1.    Credibility/Brand Visibility

Amazon has a huge brand name.  While you’re probably a force to be reckoned with in your own niche, you don’t carry the clout that Amazon does.  Amazon can get away with more roadblocks to checkout than you can, and they can dot their website with lots of shiny, distracting items.  Their reputation precedes them.  Your goal should be getting customers in and out of the process as quickly as possible.  A reputation of efficiency can only help your brand – wearing your customers’ patience thin definitely won’t.

2.    Accurate Product Up selling

In all honesty, I am not a fan of product upsales during the checkout process.  People get distracted too easily.  Amazon has a different relationship with its customers; most likely already have an account with the company.  This means that Amazon has a much better chance of matching a customer with good recommendations based on others’ orders.  Amazon has millions of orders and, therefore, a massive amount of data to refine – and you don’t.  There’s a strong chance that your last-minute upsale efforts will strike your customers as random or confusing.

3.    Customer Service Reassurance

Amazon has spent years proving to its clients that each and every problem will be addressed.  A simple email takes care of an issue from the customer’s standpoint, so Amazon doesn’t have to advertise phone numbers.  You, however, do not have that luxury.  You need to have a phone number listed on every page of your site, including the checkout portion.  Encourage customers to call!  I’ve witnessed numerous instances where companies have avoided listing a phone number because they don’t want to have to hire staff to answer the phone.  Do a cost-benefit analysis on this strategy before you opt against it – it can be hugely reassuring to your clients.

4.    Repeat Customers

There is a lot of stuff on Amazon’s site, and much of it is targeted.  As we’ve noted, they have more data than anyone else out there, and they have the ability to target well.  They don’t need to worry about distracting users like you might – their customers are likely utilizing Amazon to purchase a variety of items in the first place.  These people visit on a weekly or monthly basis, in many cases.  Because smaller businesses tend to offer a limited number of products or services, it’s in your best interest to avoid cross-selling or up selling unless it’s the only way you make a profit.  Doing lots of cross-selling can hurt your ability to convert a one-time customer into a repeat customer – remember that.

5.    Different Business Models

At the end of the day, Amazon is a huge mall; it’s a massive shopping complex with several stores tucked within it.  If you’re a shop owner, it’s unlikely that you’re anywhere close to being the big engine that Amazon is.  Rather than trying to be something you aren’t, focus on the strengths of your own model.  As a niche provider, you have the unique ability to specialize in very specific facets of your customers’ lives.  You can become the best company in your arena, and you don’t have to diversify your inventory to the point where you’re just doing “okay” in lots of things.  There are good things to each side of the coin – maximize yours rather than concentrating on what Amazon has.

If you decide to follow another company’s lead in your quest to find the next big thing, do your homework.

Make sure that the business model, product, demographics, and goals are similar.  If they’re not, you’re simply helping someone else’s business grow by using their own tactics.

Focus on what you have to offer, and base your conversion strategies on that.

Amazon’s great, but it’s not you.

Photo credit: topmarketingsavvy.com

Danny Demichele is the chairman of Incubate.com, an eBusiness incubator that offers services to help businesses grow online. 

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The credit card landscape has changed significantly since the Credit Card Act  took effect in February 2010.

Overall, this piece of reformatory legislation increased transparency and consumer rights in the general-use (personal) credit card space, curing many of the ills that pervaded prior to the Great Recession. Perhaps it’s most important provision brought debt stability to personal credit cards by prohibiting issuers from increasing interest rates on existing debt unless a cardholder becomes at least 60 days delinquent on payment.

The CARD Act does not pertain to small business credit cards, however, which makes it more important than ever that business owners answer the following questions in devising their companies’ payment strategies:

• Which are the best and worst business credit card issuers?
• How do I garner debt stability?
• What’s the most optimized payment strategy for my company?

Which are the best and worst business credit card issuers?

The best and worst business credit card issuers fall in line based on their proactive adoption of the most important CARD Act rules, which are as follows:

• No universal default (i.e. you cannot be considered in default on your credit card account because of a missed payment on a separate credit card, loan or bill)
• No double cycle billing (i.e. finance charges cannot be determined by your average balance over the past two billing cycles)
• Issuer must give 45 days’ notice prior to changing key account terms
• All payment amounts above the minimum must be applied to the balance with the highest interest rate
• No interest rate increases on existing balances unless the account holder is at least 60 days delinquent (a key provision that ensures debt stability)

A recent Card Hub study ranking the 10 largest credit card companies in the U.S. based on these criteria found that only Bank of America adopted all of the key CARD Act protections on its small business credit card offerings.

After BofA, followed Capital One, Citibank and American Express, in that order. Each applied at least one, but not all, of the major CARD Act protections. Chase, Discover and HSBC did not extend any of the aforementioned protections to their business credit cards, while U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo declined to participate in the study, indicating a lack of organizational transparency.

While you undoubtedly want as many CARD Act protections on the side of your small business as possible, given the positive effect the legislation has had on the personal credit card market, the most important is certainly that which prevents arbitrary interest rate hikes. Without debt stability, it’s impossible to budget, allocate funds, develop your business, or feel confident in its financial future.

That’s why, if you are going to use a business credit card to fund your small business venture, it must be from BofA or a smaller local bank/credit union that has taken similar pro-customer measures.

Are there any other ways to garner debt stability?

Getting a business credit card from a forward-thinking issuer is merely one of the ways to achieve debt stability for your company. Another option is to simply use a personal credit card.

A personal credit card for business?

Yes, the trite old adage that “this is business, not personal,” used often in film and television, has become less relevant to actual business, at least as far as credit cards are concerned. Not only do all major credit card companies hold both you and your company liable for business credit card use, according to a Card Hub study, but most also report business credit card use to your personal credit reports.

As a result, you are free to use a personal credit card for your business spending and thereby garner the full suite of CARD Act protections.

What is the most optimized payment plan for my business?

By now, it’s clear that you have three options when it comes to devising a credit card strategy for your small business: 1) Using only a personal credit card; 2) Using only a business credit card from an issuer that has proactively extended all of the key CARD Act protections; 3) Using a combination of the two.

It’s ill-advised to use only a personal credit card for small business spending because business credit cards provide tools and services that personal credit cards do not. For example, they allow small business owners to easily track and manage company spending, set personalized spending limits for each employee card, and earn rewards on all company purchases. They also tend to offer more lucrative rewards than personal credit cards.

Now, if you choose to use only a business credit card with issuer-applied legal protections, then you will, of course, be sacrificing variety for simplicity. A single credit card is easier to manage, yes, but the number of business credit cards that boast the required CARD Act protections is relatively small, which means the odds of finding the best possible terms within this crop will also be slim. Trying to find a single card that both offers attractive interest rates and rewards is difficult enough without paring down your options.

Using a single credit card to both revolve debt and make everyday purchases will be prohibitively expensive anyway.  When you revolve a balance, you no longer have a grace period for new charges, meaning interest will begin to accrue as soon as you make them.

This brings us to the third option: a two-card strategy.

By using a personal credit card for business funding (i.e. company purchases that you won’t be able to pay off in full in a single billing period) and a business credit card for everyday expenses (i.e. purchases that you do pay for in full on a monthly basis), you’ll not only garner debt stability, but will also have the opportunity to get both the lowest interest rates and best rewards possible.

You could, for example, open both the 0% credit card with the longest introductory term on the market and the most lucrative rewards business credit card. This strategy is based on the Island Approach to credit card use, which preaches using each credit card for a distinct purpose, playing on the notion that there is generally a trade-off when it comes to a credit card’s terms: When one area (e.g. rewards) excels, others (e.g. rates, fees, etc.) tend to suffer.

Final Thoughts
Around 80% of small business owners use credit cards for funding purposes, according to the National Small Business Association.

In light of the overhauled credit card landscape, this figure indicates two very important things: 1) a significant portion of the small business community needs to rethink its credit card strategy; 2) those that come to this realization quickest will indeed have an advantage over the competition.

Photo credit: loansafe.org

Odysseas Papadimitriou is CEO of Card Hub

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Do you want to make your office a greener and more efficient place but just aren’t sure how to start?

Greening your office can be a lot easier than you think. Check out some ideas below to get started:

Print on opposite side of recycled paper

Did you know that about 71 million tons of paper and paperboard are used in the United States each year? So instead of tossing out those extra reports after the meeting, why not flip them upside down and put them back in the printer to be used one more time.

Change to an eco-font that uses less ink

To cut down on printing costs and ink cartridge replacements consider switching fonts to one that uses less ink. Try switching fonts from Arial to Century Gothic. The font uses 30 percent less ink but is still readable. That’s what the University of Wisconsin did last year and they managed to improve their $10,000 per year toner cost by a few thousand dollars.

Invest in a POU filtration system

Switch your old water cooler system to a cleaner, more efficient point-of-use filtration system that uses your building’s pre-existing water line and a state-of-the-art filtration process to deliver the highest quality, best tasting drinking water. Not only will you save money from not having to get water jugs delivered, you will save space from being taken up by extra jug inventory and your staff will never have to run out of water and risk injury changing a heavy water jug either.

Carpool, carpool, carpool

When gas prices can jump by 20 cents in just a couple days, it sometimes becomes a challenge getting to work—especially if your commute is on the longer side. So why not save a few dollars and buddy-up for the morning car ride into work? It not only saves money that could be spent on other things but it puts fewer emissions into the air. And if your cubicle-mate is just too annoying to spend 25 minutes in a car with, there’s always public transportation.

Photo credit: solar.calfinder.com

About Quench

Kali Wyrosdic is a contributing writer for Quench, the largest bottleless water cooler company in North America. Since 2006, Quench has provided thousands of large and small businesses with an endless and sustainable supply of purified drinking water using the latest state-of-the art water filtration technologies. Quench’s drinking water service provides customers reliable water dispensing systems at the point-of-use that utilize a building’s existing tap water system to deliver chilled or hot high-quality purified and filtered water on-demand. Quench systems offer a lower cost, healthier, more convenient and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional bottled water delivery.

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Having worked with businesses of all sizes, I’ve seen tactics work as often as I’ve seen them fail.

Big businesses and corporations have usually grown to their current stature because of intelligent decision-making, endurance, and a willingness to think outside the box.  Small businesses may have more modest budgets and markets, but they can still learn a lot from their larger comrades.

 1. Strategy is king -

It’s easy for companies to get caught up in putting out fires.  It’s harder to force yourself to focus on long-term strategy, but this is where you should be devoting most of your time and resources.  Failing to get buy-in from key internal groups is one area where many people fall short.  Many times, a group publishes its new “blueprint for success” and it fails miserably, because the people who can make the plan work were never consulted on the front end.  If your plan involves operations and sales, they had better be at the table when you create it.  If they feel ownership, your chance of succeeding increases dramatically.  In addition, strategizing involves reviewing your choices, determining how your methods are performing, and considering the market’s reactions.  If you’re not satisfied with what you’re seeing, make a change.  As a small business, you have the benefit of being agile; you can react faster than the big guys.  Take advantage of this flexibility.

2. Do your homework -

If you don’t have the information to help make strategy decisions, GO GET IT!  Spending your time and money on quality research always costs less than taking a risk that fails because you didn’t anticipate the outcome.  We had a great new concept for the mattress industry, but we wanted to check some consumer research to make sure we had it right.  It turned out that our idea finished dead last when we asked consumers to rank several different concepts.  We spent $75,000 on that research, but it saved us the $250,000 we would have spent in a failed launch. We also tested the concepts with 6 top retailers in the U.S. without telling them the consumers’ favorites. They all got it wrong, too. You should be guided by good data; as a small business owner, you can’t afford to make decisions based on bad or missing information.

3. Don’t follow the leader -

One very common mistake that small businesses make is following the leader in their market.  I recently interviewed staff from a small company in Chicago and as I was reviewing their advertising, I asked the owner why he consistently gave consumers the exact same incentive to buy, week after week.  His response was that the biggest retailer in his market did it, so he assumed it was right.  News flash: the guy you’re keeping up with may not be very bright, or he may not have done his homework (see #2).  People generally follow someone else because they are lazy and don’t take the time to think creatively, they are risk-averse, or they assume that everybody else must be right.  Don’t downplay the value of being original.  The truly great companies out there achieved success by plowing the road, not by following the one already laid out.

4. WOW somebody -

Having a small budget can be a wonderful thing; it forces you to be creative.  Call your top 5 staffers together and ask this question: how can we wow our customers today?  If you answered “great prices” or “great service,” congratulations – you are giving the same boring answers everyone else is!  How do you really impress them?  Southwest Airlines and Zappos.com are excellent examples of companies who make inspired decisions regarding their customers.  Do you make emergency service calls at 3:00 a.m. so night shift production doesn’t halt?  Do you meet your customer at his loading dock when he’s short-handed?  Do you send handwritten notes to customers to express how important they are to your company?  (Emails don’t count!)  All of these things let the people who keep you in business know just how important their business is.  Smaller businesses have the ability to be personal, and people expect it.  Don’t let them down.

5. Challenge everything -

If you’re in a leadership position in your company, set your ego aside and allow – scratch that, encourage! – your people to disagree with you in a healthy way.  Don’t be the fool in the room who insists he always knows more than anyone else.  Real magic happens when people are comfortable suggesting alternatives.

Conversely, if you are working your way up the ladder, be bold.

Strive to be the person constantly coming up with new ideas.  Early in my career, I was reluctant to do this because the culture didn’t encourage it.  If the ideas you propose are well-developed, thoroughly researched, and sold with passion, you have no reason to doubt yourself.  Take inspiration from a guy from Zimbabwe I met at a coffee shop.  He was finishing his dissertation; once he finishes his doctorate, he is going home to a country with 92% unemployment.  He is going to challenge his people to think like large countries with big economic engines.

All you have to do is challenge your small business to think like a big company.  That puts your challenge in perspective, doesn’t it?  Remember that selling anything, whether it’s a product or an idea, is nothing more than the transfer of enthusiasm. The people in your company hired you to make a difference; fulfill that promise.

Above all, challenge your thinking.

Consider the ideas utilized by your larger counterparts; don’t be afraid to think big.  Small businesses aren’t limited to small ideas; don’t let yourself be, either.

Photo credit: getentrepreneurial.com

Mark Quinn is the VP of Marketing for the Residential Segment at Leggett and Platt. He also blogs on his experiences and opinions on his blog Q’s Views.

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It seems like every few weeks one blogger or another is heralding the death of SEO, usually citing social media marketing as the murderer.

Is SEO changing? Most definitely. Is social media marketing having an effect on how websites create and manage SEO campaigns? You bet. But is SEO really dead? Far from it.

Social media and SEO are not in competition with each other, as so many site owners seem to think. In fact, the two disciplines are joining forces to form social SEO, which takes the best of both campaigns and leverages them for a strong online marketing campaign.

Bing, Facebook and the “Friend Effect”

In May 2011, Bing and Facebook announced a new approach to searching, naming it the “Friend Effect.”

As Bing explained in their blog post announcing the partnership, searching has become an increasingly social experience.

We ask our friends, family and coworkers for advice at various points during the decision making process, whether it be what movie we should see this weekend or what IT services company we should hire to manage our small business. Peer review sites like Yelp allow people to connect with users outside of their personal social network and tap into what Bing calls the “collective IQ of the Web.” Because of the Friend Effect, Bing users “receive personalized search results based on the opinions of your friends by simply signing into Facebook.”

So how does that affect your SEO?

It means that a Bing user logged into Facebook could potentially see an entirely different SERP than when they aren’t logged in, based on the preferences of their network. A website that didn’t even crack the top results is suddenly catapulted to the #3 spot, just because a handful of that user’s Facebook friends Liked that page.

Now, more than ever, site owners have to make sure their content is easily shareable (and worthy of being shared). Installing the Facebook Like button on your blog is the first step, but you must take an active role in promoting your own content.  Your brand’s online presence could be severely diminished in the number two search engine if you don’t use Facebook to promote your content.

Google+ and +1

Not to be outdone by Facebook and Bing, Google launched their much anticipated social networking site, Google+ in June. A few short weeks after Google+ launched, the site had over 25 million users that were sharing more than a billion pieces of content EVERY DAY.

The newest social networking site recently opened up the brand floodgates, allowing companies to create their own business profiles. Some have heralded Google+ as the Facebook killer; while others say it’s doomed to fail like the other Google social networking attempts. Regardless of what you think, there is no denying that right now Google+ has a lot of potential.

The +1 button, the predecessor to Google+, was Google’s answer to the “Friendship Effect” created by Bing and Facebook. As Google explained:

Adding the +1 button to pages on your own site lets users recommend your content, knowing that their friends and contacts will see their recommendation when it’s most relevant…When a signed-in Google user is searching, your Google search result snippet may be annotated with the names of the user’s connections who’ve +1′d your page.

This means that when a Google user is logged into the Google account and searching, the search results will show who in their social network has liked which result. The idea behind the +1 button is that people don’t necessarily want Google telling them which results are the best, but they are more likely to trust a piece of content that has been +1d by a friend.

So how does that affect your SEO?

Just recently, Google+ brand pages have begun appearing with the SERP alongside company websites.

In some cases, content businesses have shared on Google+ are also directly published on the SERPs. This is an excellent opportunity for companies to expand their overall online presence, especially for branded searches. The more chances a potential customer has to interact with your company the better.

While it has yet to be confirmed, many in the SEO industry suspect that Google might be giving more weight to websites that have an active Google+ account and receive numerous +1s on their content. Since Google no longer has direct access to Facebook’s data, it makes sense to assume they are using Google+ and +1 to fill the gaps.

The worlds of social media and search are becoming more and more intertwined everyday. Bing wants to offer more personalized search, Google wants to be a social networking site, Facebook wants to become the hub of all our online activities and brands have to balance multiple campaigns at once if they want to compete.

The most successful websites are the ones who recognize social’s impact on SEO and are integrating the two disciplines into one strong online presence.

Photo credit: ibizclicks.com

About the Author

Nick Stamoulis is a Boston SEO consultant and president of Brick Marketing, a full service SEO and white hat link building  company. With over 12 years of industry experience, Stamoulis shares his knowledge by posting daily SEO tips to his blog, the Search Engine Optimization Journal, and by publishing the Brick Marketing SEO newsletter, read by over 150,000 opt-in subscribers.

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Businesses invest a lot of time and effort in creating a Web site that reveals their expertise, as well as their brand.

Building a professional, informative Web site with a high-end design ensures that customers will have confidence in your company.  But what good does that do if no one ever finds your Web site?

It’s critical that your Web site and search engine optimization work together.

In the big picture, what’s the return on investment for a site that looks great but has very little traffic?  A ghost town of a Web site isn’t going to bring your target audience in, and your growth is stifled.

On the other hand, if you’ve exploited your SEO and have high traffic but a lightweight Web site, you’ll have the opposite problem: lots of prospects, but very few customers.

How to Build a Credible Site

First things first: when you build your site, make sure it’s clean, professional, and user-friendly.

Here are some issues to consider in the construction phase:

1. Avoid using Flash

This is simple: Flash is not business-friendly.  Search engines usually can’t detect information imbedded in Flash, and Web site reporting on Flash sites is difficult and inaccurate.  The maintenance is endless, and you won’t be w3c-compliant.  Worse, many Web sites’ hosts disable Flash to avoid spam advertising, so all your effort is for nothing.

2. Avoid low quantity of content

Visitors come more frequently to sites with consistently new content; it makes their time investment more worthwhile.  They’re also driven there by search engines, which pick up sites with high content delivery more easily.

3. Pick only one spot to use motion on your homepage

This refers back to some of the issues with Flash, but it can also look cheesy to have an abundance of motion icons.  Pick one place where it will make an impact, and then step away.

4. Use consistent fonts

Have you ever read an Internet article and noticed that it jumped to a different font halfway through?  It was jarring, and it made you question the professionalism of the site, didn’t it?  Don’t do that to your readers.

5. Avoid overcrowding

A crowded Web site makes it difficult for your clients to find the information they’re looking for.  Great design utilizes clean lines, open space (within reason), and user-friendly fonts.  Once you draw customers in, you can follow up with additional information.  Focus on the hook.

6. Avoid placing many Calls-to-Action on the homepage

Call-to-Action buttons, which implore you to “Buy now!” or “Post a job,” are great for getting people to take action.  You need to clearly explain what each one is for, so you want to minimize the number you place on your homepage – that real estate has other uses.

7. Don’t use templates

Templates are efficient, yes, but they prevent you from being able to adequately brand your business.  They’re too generic, and they carry less value than customized sites.  They also hurt your compliance with different programming languages.

How to Optimize SEO

A great Web site that’s representative of your brand and your mission is the first step; the next is to make sure people land on it.  Here are some questions to ask yourself as you maximize SEO:

1. Is the site w3c-compliant?

You may have heard people ask whether a mark-up validation check is necessary.  It absolutely is – it debugs your site, it reduces the amount of maintenance you’ll do long-term, and it’s a sign of professionalism.

2. Do we have SEO-friendly URLs?

You’ve no doubt racked your brain to find a URL that quickly summarizes what your business is all about.  Sometimes, however, the things that seem helpful (punctuation, lots of words) make your URL difficult to remember, type, or protect.  “Clean” your URLs as necessary to ensure that search engines are zoning in on you.

3. Are all meta tags in place?

These title tags not only are highlighted on a browser, they’re also culled by search engines and displayed in search results.  Make sure your meta tags are relevant, brief, and utilize keywords.

4. Is RSS feed provided?

RSS feeds allow publishers to automatically syndicate their content.  That means you can publish content once, and it can be viewed from many different programs simultaneously.  RSS feeds can be read via the web or mobile devices; this is a big benefit in the current marketplace.  Make sure you’re mobile-friendly.

5. Have we checked the site speed?

You can check your site speed using Firefox’s page speed tool.  Maximizing your page speed cannot be underestimated.  The longer a customer waits for your page to load, the higher your probability is of losing him.

6. Is there enough dynamic content?

Text is great, but you’ll want to engage your clients with graphics and images as well.  Dynamic content allows you to build content “on demand,” with the content tailored to your users.  Caching (recycling) your content will give you more flexibility in this arena.

If you take each of these items into account, you’ll be well on your way to building a site that’s user-friendly, as well as a search engine’s best friend.  Presenting a professional image, while maximizing your SEO, will help you bring in prospects and convert them to customers.  Make your Web site work for you.  If you build it, they will come.

Photo credit: Sitebuildertips.com

Hassan Bawab is the founder and CEO of Magic Logix, an interactive digital marketing correlation that combines dynamic Web site development, professional Web site design, SEO and integrated online marketing, to drive new leads with high conversion.

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Seeking adequate funding for a start up enterprise can be a daunting task, especially in this trying economic environment, but have you wondered why individuals attending a critical funding presentation began to look the other way, look at their watches, and edge for the nearest exit?

It may not be that your proposal does not have merit, but it may come down to your “story” not being as complete as they would like.

The investment community today is more “numbers-driven” than ever before. A slick marketing pitch is not enough. Your financial history and projections must also tell a tale that correlates well with the marketing side of your business model.

It is true that the first thing investors like to see in a new venture is that the leader has an extensive marketing background, well-grounded in all phases of distribution, product packaging, and sales management. These skills must be present to ensure that the “revenue” side of the equation will be addressed with focused solutions.

As for the “expense” side of the ledger, investors want to see detailed numbers that make sense to them related to market sizing, competitive profiles, customer acquisition costs, direct cost of goods sold, discretionary spending, and overhead. The focus will be on trends and operating ratios that demonstrate that increasing revenues equate to increasing profits.

These investor groups have seen more business presentations in a week than you will see in your lifetime. They know what “good” is, but they are quick to judge the “bad and the ugly”. The latter is almost always lacking in financial information that matters to the people in the room. Typically, a five-year projection that dramatically displays revenues growing to the magic $100 million mark is the only “numbers” slide.

In the absence of anything else, the entrepreneur is asking the “room” to “trust me,” highly unlikely when other business plans are more professional in their content and create an impression that the management team is focused on all the right priorities.

Unless you have substantial capital or collateral of your own in “the game”, most potential investors or lenders will not be accommodating if their immediate impression is unfavorable. They expect to see numbers derived from experience, not “guesstimates” of how you think things will play out. The days of investors throwing money at just an “idea” are long past. An operating business model with paying customers and predictable margins in a fast-paced and growing market is the basic expectation at “Square One”.

These expectations are not that difficult to understand if you look at your own decision-making process.

If you were in the retail business, whether store front or on the Internet, you would take your time researching merchant account reviews before ever committing to a merchant processor. Cost would be an issue, and you would want to know how fees would change over time, based on volume and transaction sizes. A merchant account review might point you to a small group for consideration, but you would want to see more number-oriented information before making your final choice.

Investors are no different than this simple example of business decision-making. The best way to answer number-related questions is to present the “answers” before the questions are ever asked.

Here are a few pointers:

1. Size of Market: Don’t just say it is $1 billion and growing. Take the time to detail size and growth rates from other industry reports, competitor press releases, and general news articles. Cite your sources, since there will be heavy scrutiny in this area;
2. Costs of Distribution: What is your sales cycle? Sales pipeline? Customer acquisition cost? Commission compensation structure? Marketing and advertising plans with response rates given?
3. Operating Margins: What are your current operating profits after cost of goods sold? What are the historical trends? Are margins predictable and improving over time? How can this trend be improved upon?
4. Other Ratios: Is overhead manageable? Are there other key expenses and how do they relate to revenue? Are there capital asset requirements? How quickly do clients pay their bills? Any debt issues?

You have one chance to make a good first impression. Use it wisely.

About the author: Tom Cleveland is a writer for MerchantSeek.com. He has over 30 years of
experience in executive management, corporate governance and business
development

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Slow-to-pay and no-pay customers can be a real headache for small business owners.

Those outstanding invoices often create havoc with a small business’ cash flow and can bring operations to a grinding halt- especially if the company is working on tight profit margins. But collecting on outstanding consumer debt does not have to begin with a bottle of aspirin.

Here are a few strategies to help small business owners get the most money from those outstanding invoices:

Develop a credit policy: Business owners should make sure to clearly outline the terms and conditions customers must fulfill to establish credit with the company as well as the actions that will be taken when accounts are overdue. This policy should be made available to customers and can be submitted with any invoices on overdue accounts so that these customers know what to expect.

Keep good records: Along with a credit policy, businesses need to maintain clear, accurate, and up-to-date credit files and payment histories on each of their customers. There are numerous accounting software suites, such as those offered by Quickbooks, Peachtree, MYOB, and Microsoft Office and even some decent free, open source options, such as GnuCash and NolaPro, that can help small business owners stay on top of their accounts receivables.

Be assertive, yet sensible with collection efforts: Trying to collect on overdue accounts is a delicate balance. On one hand, a business can often ill afford to be lax with collection calls and demand for payment letters. On the other hand, to keep loyal customers business owners should also take into consideration any external circumstances, such as economic conditions, that may affect a customer’s short-term ability to pay and make adjustments to the credit policy where it is feasible. Moreover, when deciding how to collect on an overdue account, a business owner should weigh the cost (in terms of money and other resources) of any collection efforts versus the actual amount that can be recovered.

Don’t stop the communication: Once the communication stops between the business and the indebted customer, the likelihood that the business will receive even some if its money is much less. All communication should be firm, yet clear and respectful.

Know what action to take and when: Business owners should be familiar with the different options available for collecting on outstanding invoices or reducing the loss.

• Send the invoice to a factoring company. If the outstanding account fulfills certain requirements, it can be given over to a factoring company. With accounts receivables factoring, the business will receive a significant percentage of the amount owed on the invoice up front from the factoring company and also be able to hand over the collection process.

• Find a good collection agency. For a fee, small business owners can enlist the expertise and services of a collection agency to nudge customers into paying on the account.

• Take the customer to small claims court. Though going to small claims court may not be such an attractive or even worthwhile option, there may be certain situations that warrant this course of action. A business owner, for example, may want to begin the process in order to influence a customer into reaching some kind of settlement.

• Claim the loss for a tax deduction. According to the Tax Code IRC 166, Reg. 1.166, business owners may be able to claim part of the loss on their subsequent tax return.

In short, with a little effort, know-how, and sensibility, small business owners can significantly improve their chances of collecting on outstanding invoices, and keep their heads clear for more important matters, such as running their business.

Photo credit: findgreatlawyers.com

Gary Barzel is the manager of business development for Fastupfront, which offers small business loans for existing businesses in need of working capital.

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Did you know that the average American small business could save as much as $5,000 per year by becoming 25 percent more energy efficient?

That’s what a study by the National Small Business Association discovered. It also found that if all small businesses made this effort, greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 259 million tons — or the equivalent of 51 coal-fired power plants.

No matter what type of green your business is counting, everybody wins with energy efficiency.

But the upfront costs of acquiring more energy-efficient equipment can often be a hurdle for small businesses. If you’re a small business owner looking to cut costs and do your part for the environment, your local utility may have innovative energy-efficiency programs and varying incentives to help.

For instance, in San Diego County, where 95 percent of businesses are small businesses, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) launched a no-cost program targeting small to mid-sized commercial customers in February 2011, and many are taking advantage of it.

Called Direct Install, it’s also available from California’s other major utilities with a similar initiative offered through several New York State utilities. You can visit http://www.dsireusa.org to find out what incentives apply for small businesses in your state.

While the program may go by different names elsewhere and have various levels of costs associated with it, a call to your local utility should get the ball rolling. In San Diego, more than 2,000 sites have acquired state-of-the-art energy-efficient equipment before the end of the program’s first year. This includes the latest in energy-efficient lighting, refrigeration improvements, LED ‘open’ and ‘exit’ signs, and occupancy sensors.

It also includes something called vending misers, which are devices that make vending machines 50 percent more energy efficient by shutting off lights when no one is around and powering down refrigeration when the sodas are cold. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a typical vending machine equipped with this technology and meeting its ENERGY STAR criteria could save your business in the neighborhood of 1,500 kWh per year compared to standard models.

Through SDG&E’s program in San Diego and Southern Orange County, offices, bar and grilles, churches, fitness centers, barber shops and more have become more energy efficient without the upfront costs.

Qualifying businesses get a free energy consultation provided by the utility’s contracted specialists. The contractors identify where less-efficient equipment can be replaced with more energy-efficient products to reduce your energy use, carbon footprint and electric bill – all at no cost to you! And they’ll work with you to identify a convenient time for the equipment installation – during regular business hours or after-hours to minimize any disruption to your business.

With businesses seeking savings everywhere they can, teaming up with your utility on programs such as these is a smart move.

Photo credit: usatech.com

Ted M. Reguly is the director of Customer Programs & Assistance at San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and previously served as director of the Smart Meter and Home Area Network initiatives for the utility. He oversees SDG&E’s energy efficiency, demand response and customer assistance programs. He is an active member of UtilityAMI, OpenAMI and the ZigBee Alliance, and also serves on the board of directions for the utility technology association, Utilimetrics.

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