by Dave on July 31, 2008
Do you know how long it takes to present an amazing new product/service/concept to the market? Around 2 seconds. That’s the time between clicking the Publish button on your blog and the world’s blog search engines receiving your information.
The Web allows us to reach our markets faster and cheaper than ever before. The Web lets us compete head-to-head with larger competitors. And it doesn’t discriminate. So why do most micro businesses fail to use even 1% of the Internet marketing tools available to them. It all comes down to knowledge and understanding.
Ask yourself these questions:
- When did you last re-design your website? If it was more than 2 years ago, you’re probably in trouble.
- When did you last update your website content? Have you ever read your website content?
- Do you have a blog? More importantly, do you know how a blog could help your micro business grow?
- Do you use pay-per-click advertising campaigns to get your niche market to buy from you?
- Do you use free open source software to run your Website? Do you understand how your website works?
As a micro business owner, you have an amazing tool at your disposal. The opportunity to use the Internet to help you grow your micro business is staring you in the face.
So, are you siezing the opportunity or letting it pass you by because you don’t understand HTML?
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by Dave on July 30, 2008
People keep telling me I run a small business. I tend to disagree. As far as I’m concerned I run a microbusiness. The term ‘microbusiness’ sounds sexier. It sounds nimble and a lot less frail than ’small business’.
According to the only decent definition of microbusiness I could find online, a microbusiness is:
A small business, that together with affiliates, has an annual gross receipts of $2 750 000 or less over the past 3 years, or a small business manufacturer with 25 or fewer employees - source
To me this is a bit clinical, and it’s American, so I don’t know if the same criteria apply in the UK. If you asked me what defined a microbusiness, I’d say that it’s a very small company (managed by the owner), with little time to do marketing and little or no budget to spend on advertising. In most cases a microbusiness is a traditional bricks-and-mortar establishment or service oriented business.
What makes a microbusiness successful is not the amount of profit it makes (although that always helps) but rather the number of long term, profitable relationships the owner is able to forge with vendors and clients, ensuring the long-term survival and growth of the business.
Microbusiness owners know that every client is their best PR opportunity, and they’ll do their best to make sure they make, and keep their clients happy.
So, do you run a microbusiness? If you do, welcome to the club.
by Dave on July 29, 2008
If you’ve ever asked any Internet marketer worth his salt about the use of Flash on a website, you’ll know that while it can be used to create visually stunning websites, it’s a complete nightmare from a search engine optimization perspective.
So when Google reported that their search tools are starting to support Flash indexing earlier this month, a lot of people in the industry got a little glint in their eye. But it’s not time to roll out that Flashy website re-design just yet, as Search Engine Land’s Vanessa Fox concluded in this article.
For example, Google hasn’t said whether they are going to award Flash based links the same amount of authority as HTML links. And never forget that, despite the increase in Internet connection speeds over the past couple of years, most of us still don’t want to watch a spinning wheel for 30 seconds while a web page loads.
If you’re seriously considering using Flash in your design, you’d be well advised to (a) read the Google announcement here, and (b) have a long chat with your website marketing person to decide whether your search engine results will be affected.
In my opinion, you’d be better off sticking with good old fashioned HTML for the time being. Let someone else with a bigger marketing budget than yours be the martyr.
