Without a library of powerful small business online resources, you may find yourself overwhelmed, frustrated and on the verge of giving up your internet marketing efforts.

SkyMax has compiled a list of 10 popular and powerful small business online resources to help you build, grow and manage your small business. The best part is – they’re 100% FREE!
And we could all use a little more FREE, right?

1. GOOGLE DOCS: Google Docs makes it easy to collaborate and share your documents with associates, prospects and customers. Create documents, spreadsheets, online surveys and much more with ease.

2. DROPBOX: Still using flash drives, CD/DVD’s or (gasp!) floppy disks?? Dropbox allows you to store all of your documents in virtual space, which makes a quick and convenient way to share documents or access them directly from any computer in the world. Although they have paid accounts available, you can get up to 2GB of storage absolutely free.

3. JING: Jing is a free screen-capture software program that gives you the ability to create both online videos, images, tutorials or training videos with ease. The software runs from your computer and all files are stored online, which makes it super easy to share your work.

4. MAILCHIMP: If you’ve been hesitant to implement an email marketing strategy because of monthly service fees, then you have no more excuses! MailChimp offers a free account for up to 2,000 subscribers, complete with opt-in forms, newsletter templates, autoresponders and excellent email marketing training.

5. WORDPRESS: The most powerful website publishing platform and Content Management System (CMS) is free! If your goal is to rank highly in the search engines for your market keyword phrases, WordPress is an excellent platform to develop on – search engines absolutely LOVE WordPress websites!

6. FACEBOOK: With over 700 million people on Facebook, if your small business doesn’t have a presence – you’re missing out BIG TIME on free traffic, subscribers, referrals and the potentially viral effect of social media. Getting it started is one step, although we highly recommend a custom Facebook Business Page Design for your landing page.

7. PICRESIZE: This nifty online tool allows you to resize, crop and save images into different formats. No software to download, no annoying popup ads, no watermarks and yes, it’s all free!

8. GOOGLE ALERTS: Get instant notification anytime your market keywords, company name, even your competitors names are featured online on blogs, news sites, forums and more. This is an excellent free way to keep a pulse on any keywords you desire. Also read our Small Business Internet Reputation Management article for more information on this subject.

9. MERCHANT CIRCLE: Although there are countless places to setup a small business profile online, Merchant Circle is one of the largest and best directories to get your small business listed in. You’ll be surprised how many of your local business neighbors you’ll find there!

10. MEETUP: This is an excellent place to locate local networking events with local business owners, professionals and entrepreneurs. Join groups that interest you or start your own!

Of course this list is barely scratching the surface. We want to hear about YOUR favorite free small business online resources. Share your favorites in the comments below!

Consumers are increasingly more internet savvy. They’re researching companies and individuals on Google, Yahoo! and Bing before making online purchases or deciding to work with a specific company. Negative reviews about your small business, whether they are truthful or not, can leave a bad taste in your prospects mouth.

For the small business owner, there are simple steps you can take to be proactive in responding to less than satisfied customers or those out to harm your company name – without paying a fortune for Reputation Management Services.

Less than 2% of all online searches ever advance beyond the first page of the search results. You can use this to your advantage by pushing negative reviews, blog posts or articles off of the first page of search results and down into the internet abyss for good.

1. Signup For Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a powerful tool used to monitor the internet for new content published online that references your specified keywords. Enter your name, your business name and your business website address to be alerted by email the instant anything is posted online in reference to your specified keywords. You’ll be supplied with website addresses of the content that was published so that you may review and respond to any positive or negative reviews or comments.

2. Setup a Facebook Fan Page For Your Business. If you don’t have one yet – get one. Facebook Fan Pages can rank quickly within the search engines for your company name, helping to push down any negative reviews or comments in the search results.

3. Start a Company Blog. Blogs that are configured directly on your company website can help boost your search engine rankings, as well as capture rankings for additional keyword phrases. Speak about yourself, your personal thoughts and ideas, your company, your products, services and your associates. Make sure to respond promptly to visitors commenting on your blog posts and you’ll quickly build a rapport with your audience while reinforcing your online reputation. If you don’t have the ability to develop a blog directly on your company domain, consider the most popular (and free) blogging platforms WordPress or Blogger.

4. Submit Optimized Videos. Create and submit simple videos where you speak about yourself, your company, products or services. If you’re a little apprehensive about getting in front of the camera, consider a Powerpoint presentation or a quick slideshow video using free software such as Microsoft Movie Maker.

5. Submit Optimized Press Releases. Create and submit online press releases that highlight your business, products, services, an outstanding employee or an upcoming event or promotion. Many people are unaware that your standard media press releases can be crafted specifically for the internet, and can quickly boost your search engine rankings.

Keep in mind that the purpose of submitting optimized content (blog posts, press releases, videos, social updates, etc.) for your small business internet reputation management, is to push the negative reviews and comments off of the first page of search results. To successfully do this, you’ll need a general understanding of basic Search Engine Optimization.

Ensure that your name, your company name, your company website address or targeted keywords appear in the TITLE and CONTENT of the material you publish online.

Do you have other quick reputation management tips that could be helpful to other small business owners? Leave a comment below!

Adam Skiba: “What was your Groupon experience like, from campaign setup to execution and fulfillment?”

Sheila Maleckas: “The campaign setup is basically whatever your company wants to advertise at a deep discount. Once you know what your offer is, your Groupon representative will let you know if they think it’s good enough for their audience. They will tell you what has been done in the past from others in the same industry so you can get an edge on your promotion.”

“They also tell you how many people this will be sent out too and when your ad will run. They requested some key business information from me before even considering me for their website. They did their own background check and asked me for a copy of my license and liability insurance information. They also asked for all information relevant to my practice; education for certifications, types of massages offered, prices, hours of operation and how long I’ve been in practice.”

“Once all that information was in their hands, they passed it onto their whimsical editors! From there the editors created this hilarious article about my company for publishing with the promotion. Nothing was published without my full consent. They pride themselves on their witty charm for advertising your business information in a fun way to the general public. Trust me, it’s what they (the public) live for. Every morning, millions of Groupon subscribers can’t wait to open their e-mail to see what’s in store for today’s promotion! Some even seemed to have a Groupon addiction!”

“My experience was amazing and far surpassed my expectations. I ran a Groupon for an hour massage, normally $65.00, for only $25.00. Groupon’s fee was 50% of all sales. I sold 138 Groupon’s which came as a surprise, as my Groupon representative thought I may only sell 50-65! So $25.00 divided in half and you get $12.50 per Groupon sold, minus taxes. I received three separate checks from them. One was sent out immediately after my ad expired. The second check came 30 days after that, and the final check in 60 days. Groupon separates the payments this way in case anyone who purchased the Groupon has changed their minds and wants a full refund.”

Sheila Maleckas: “For me, I didn’t do it for the money, but ran it to increase my client base so I can have a greater outreach of clients that may have never heard of me before. I have already got a great return rate of repeat clients. For every 3 or 4 customers that have redeemed, I’ve received 1 or 2 return clients.”

Adam Skiba: “Often times a small percentage of Groupon-buyers never redeem their Groupon. What percentage, if any, have not yet scheduled their massage with you?”

Sheila Maleckas: “Roughly 30% have not redeemed yet. However, they have one year from the end date of the Groupon to come in for service before it expires.”

Adam Skiba: “How did your loyal, regular customers react to so many customers with deeply discounted coupons?”

Sheila Maleckas: “My regular clients weren’t bothered by it. Some even purchased the Groupon for themselves and as gifts for their families, friends and co-workers.”

Adam Skiba: “Have you experienced an increase in website traffic or website sales due to the Groupon promotion publicity?”

Sheila Maleckas: “Yes, loads more of traffic!!! Kudos to Adam and all at SkyMax for such an amazing website design you did! I get countless compliments on it and plug you guys whenever I get the chance.”

Adam Skiba: “If you could redo your Groupon promotion, is there anything you would have done differently, or any systems you would have in place now?”

Sheila Maleckas: “Since I am running another Groupon shortly, I increased the selling price a bit so that I don’t lose so much upfront. I also limited the purchase to one per customer with the ability to purchase one additional as a gift. Last time there was no set preference and a few people bought 4 or 5 themselves, which defeated the overall purpose of getting exposure to new clients!”

Adam Skiba: “Thanks for sharing your Groupon experience with us Sheila! Do you have any advice or recommendations for other small business owners considering a Groupon promotion?”

Sheila Maleckas: “All I can say is if you have a business, no matter how small or large, you have got to try Groupon! I promise you will not be disappointed!!”

Google lashed back with the launch of Google Offers which could very well give Groupon and Living Social a run for their money.


With this type of growth in the daily-deals market, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw companies like Facebook and Twitter launching their own deal of the day offers.

Until then however, Groupon has proven to be a true advertising beast. What else would you call a service that can deliver thousands of customers to your door in 24 hours?

And they’re not your average customer. They’re sale-snatching, rabid-foaming, impulse buyers that consistently buy 2, 3, even 4 Groupons at a time.

So is Groupon right for your small business? My initial reaction when considering this type of advertising is regarding branding. Do you think that by giving such a deep discount you risk damaging your brand?

If you’re in the Pioneer Valley region here in Western Massachusetts, your offer will reach well over 70,000 people. How much would it cost you to reach this many people otherwise?

Groupon has been getting a bad reputation with some small business owners who lost out big time. From my perspective, these are business owners who never crunched the numbers or had any follow-up marketing systems in place.

Considering a Groupon promotion for your small business in Western Massachusetts? Connect with our local Groupon representative Katie Byrnes for more information: @Groupon_Katie

We should always be guiding our visitors to take specific actions. Whether it’s downloading or requesting more information, filling out an opt-in or contact form, visiting our business location, giving us a call or making an online purchase, colors play an important role in invoking specific emotions to drive our visitors to take action now.

Sources:
“The Effects of Store Environment on Shopping Behaviors: A Critical Review,” LAM YIN, SHUN
“The Psychology of Color in Marketing” CAMBELL, JUNE.

To remain competitive in today’s marketplace, now more than ever, it’s critical to ensure your business is found online by your prospects. Rest assured that your competitors are making moves to increase their search engine rankings and online presence this year, and here’s 7 small business SEO tips that you can deploy to get ahead in 2011.

7 Essential Small Business SEO Tips

1. Keyword Phrases: If you’re targeting the wrong keywords, your SEO campaign will obviously be a flop. If your leads and sales through search engine optimization were dismal throughout 2010, it’s time to reevaluate your keyword targeting. Be sure to include location modifiers in your optimization strategy if you’re targeting local prospects, and consider linguistic SEO if you’re targeting a specific demographic. Use keyword tools (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) to check keyword search volumes and get new ideas for profitable keywords and phrases to target.
2. Content: The content you create should not only be built around keywords you’re targeting, but also around what consumers are going to find useful and has a high likelihood of being shared and linked to. Think of the various ways people like to consume information; articles, videos, podcasts, etc.
3. Mobile Optimization: If your website isn’t mobile friendly, you’re losing visitors, and quite possibly leads and sales. We’ve become a mobile dependent society and adapting your website to mobile devices increases the likelihood of acquiring new leads and sales.
4. Local Search: Google Places has become the default for many industry specific searches. 2010 marked the year of major changes in the local search realm, and consumers have ultimately accepted these results as trustworthy. Appearing in the “Google Pack” starts this trust with your prospects.
5. Link Building: Search engines play close attention to your internal, outgoing and incoming links, and 2011 will be no exception. If you want to increase your search engine rankings, you have to increase your incoming links – this is no secret. If you only embark on one strategy this coming year, focus on building a strong link building strategy that encompasses internal and external linking through relevant websites, content, directories, blogs and social media.
6. Canonical Pathway: Creating a clear and precise canonical pathway domain will avoid multiple page variations. The search engine spiders are unable to determine which is the preferred pathway for your website, (http://www.yourwebsite.com and http://yourwebsite.com) therefore, you need to manually establish one pathway. This will avoid what search engines classify as duplicate content within your website.
7. Image ALT Tags: Often times ALT tagging images and photos is forgotten. Search engines cannot read your photos and images, but they can see and index the text that is associated with it. Creating ALT tags that contain your targeted keywords not only prevent the stop gap for search engine spiders, but also allows an extra source for keyword density. Image TIP: Before uploading any images or photos to your website, rename the photo to a keyword relevant name, then utilize alternative keywords as ALT tags.

Mobile internet usage, desktop and laptop usage while at work and at home will continue to increase year by year. People are searching online and they trust the search engines to give them results.


Are you optimized and ready for 2011?

Students were left with powerful SEO insights describing how to dominate the natural search results, in search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Bing, with multiple high-rank listings of websites, videos, local maps, and more.

The major topic on hand was how the effectiveness of traditional marketing and advertising media was rapidly changing and declining with the advancement of technology, such as internet search, mobile smart phones and social media. As more consumers look less towards the yellow pages and traditional media, and more towards searching online for companies, products, and services, it proposes new technical studies and skills for the modern marketer.

All students received a reserved free copy of Adam’s upcoming book entitled; A Decade of SEO – Small Business Triumph Over Big Brand Adversaries. The book highlights how the internet and search engine optimization (SEO) has leveled the playing field for local small businesses up against larger corporations with bigger advertising budgets. Students will have a first hand view as Adam discusses the only 3 ingredients you need to dominate the internet search results, and stand the test of time.

For more information on the Academic Programs available at Springfield Technical Community College, visit http://www.stcc.edu

For more information on local Search Engine Optimization speaking and training events hosted by Adam Skiba, visit SkyMaxMarketing.com.

Check out 5 simple SEO techniques you may be neglecting, that are contributing to your lack of search engine love.

1. It’s hot off the press, with no links!
If your website domain is fairly new, you may not have external links pointing to your website yet. Search engines use spider crawling technology that will find your website by “crawling” through links to you from within an external website. Without some basic backlinks that the search engines can crawl, your website may never be fully indexed.

2. It’s graphic or flash intensive.
Your website is constructed of mostly graphics, photographic images, or flash content in which the search engine spiders cannot fully understand and index. Often times I am confronted with a frustrated business owner that has paid a small fortune for a beautiful, flash-driven website. They’re great to visit, typically providing a pleasant user experience, however, search technology is not fully capable of crawling and indexing video and flash related content. (It’s getting there!)

3. You have poor internal linking.
When some or most of your internal web pages have not been indexed, it’s a clear indication of improper or poor navigation and internal page linking.

4. You have long and ugly URL’s.
If your URL strings are unorganized, irrelevant, containing numbers and symbols, or they’re simply long and ugly in general, search engines may not be giving your website the love it deserves. Give a little love to the search engines, keep your URL strings short and keyword focused, and they’ll give a little back.

5. You have no title tag!
Would you name your own son or daughter “boy” or “girl”? Nobody would take you seriously with a name like that, would they? As such, the search engines won’t take you seriously with a website named “http://…”. Be sure to name each website page properly. Keep it short and clever, to the point, and keyword focused. Sell the click.

So what’s the big deal? What does this instant search technology mean to you, your business, and your search engine rankings?

What’s ultimately changing here is how consumers are searching. Search query patterns will change, click patterns will change, and obviously, page scanning behaviors will change. Searchers will better understand how to modify their search queries, and can easily get more targeted results with long-tail phrases and auto-complete suggestions.

As a marketer, you need to be aware of your prospects changing behavior. First page rankings on broader, short-tail keywords are even more important now than ever. Your long-tail targeted keyword phrases are no longer the first results consumers see.

Give it a shot yourself – how’s your website fare on the broader short-tail with Google Instant? The typical searcher may not even scroll down the page while changing search queries, making it more important to be ranking above the fold.

So what can you do?

• Optimize for broader, more general search terms, or publish newly optimized landing pages. Pull out all the stops on your small business SEO techniques, or get the qualified online SEO training you need to get ahead.
• Optimize for shorter keyword focused Title and Meta descriptions. The more keywords you stuff in here, the less weight they all hold. Don’t junk it up here – keep it short, and sell the click.
• Optimize for the auto-complete suggestions, as these will gain even more search volume now.

It’s hard to predict just how Google Instant will affect the way people search, and ultimately, your search rankings and website traffic. Many people may turn off the function altogether. Yahoo! claims it infringes on patents it’s held for years. Have any predictions or thoughts on the matter yourself?

This 10 step social media marketing strategy can be applied to any business, large or small, in any market. If you’re not already getting social: You’re missing opportunities, you’re leaving potential customers and money on the table, and most importantly in my opinion, your search engine rankings are suffering.

You don’t have to get it perfect – just get it started.

1. Research Target Market Social Behaviors

You must identify and understand the online social behaviors of your target market.

2. Define Social Marketing Strategy

Determine the objectives you hope to achieve by participating in a social space online. Be strategic about your social behavior and create a plan to achieve your objectives by leveraging a carefully selected set of social avenues. The following list provides a few suggestions to get started.

[one_half]

• Photo Sharing
• Video Sharing
• Shared Bookmarking
• Podcasting
• Videocasting
• Video Conferencing
• Content Communities
• Forums

[/one_half]

[one_half last]

• Social Shopping
• Social Networking
• Blogs & Microblogs
• Virtual Worlds
• Interest Groups
• Wikis
• Widgets

[/one_half]

3. Create and Manage Social Brand Identity

For each social marketing avenue, you must determine whether to position yourself and/or your company as a trusted friend, or as an expert authority.

4. Establish Core Social Media Foundation

It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the large number of activities offered by social media. You can jump ahead of 95% of others simply by establishing and sticking with a sound foundation of core social media practices.

5. Engage In Social Conversations

Implement your social marketing strategy by submitting valuable content and offering useful participation in conversations taking place in your chosen social marketing avenues.

6. Utilize Video Based Engagement

Maximum social media effectiveness necessitates the intelligent use of video to engage your readers and followers. I can’t stress the importance of video marketing enough, not only to facilitate high search engine rankings, but simply because search engines/consumers/technology are trending towards video and rich, interactive media.

7. Monitor and Analyze Social Integration Points

An extremely important, yet often overlooked, process step requires the monitoring and analysis of your social conversations.

8. Implement Brand Reputation Monitoring

You must be aware of the potential negatives of social media involvement and monitor your brand reputation at all times. This can be as simple as setting up a Google Alert for you, your brand, even your competitors.

9. Measure Social Strategy Effectiveness

A social marketing strategy, like any other business process, must be measured against organizational objectives using a defined set of metrics.

10. Have You Met Your Social Marketing Objectives?

If the objectives of your social marketing efforts are not met, you must redesign your social marketing strategy.