Small Business Blog

1. Open your home page. How does your site tell your visitors that they can find the information/service/product they need?

a. An immediately visible, powerful but short statement in big, bold text
b. An image of your logo
c. A picture of your product
d. A paragraph describing your business
e. A link to an “About Us” page

2. How many courses of action can your user take to engage with your site?

a. Unlimited, e.g., she can search, research, buy, leave her email, live chat, meet up with friends, leave a comment, check her pulse, do her laundry (wouldn’t that be nice?)b. Two or three, e.g., she can buy, subscribe or leave her email

3. How does your site lead your users to the desired action?

a. Compelling offer or short call to action
b. Paragraph explaining the supreme quality of your products/services
c. Main navigational bar giving the user quick access to all the options
d. Fancy flash intro that your user must watch or “skip”
e. Contact us button in the footer

4. What color are the links on your page?

a. Black
b. Yellow
c. Red
d. Old-fashioned royal blue

5. How long does your site take to load?

a. I don’t know, seems pretty fast
b. I don’t know, kinda slow
c. I don’t know, does it matter?

Answer Key

Before we get to the specific questions, I have a short disclaimer. The “ideals” for any Web site are dependent on the purpose of the site. This quiz is slanted towards sites that sell product. Although these concepts can be used to improve the user experience on any site, some may be hard to implement on a brochure-type site or a content site.

Question 1: Why am I here? (continue reading…)

Many would-be entrepreneurs find themselves presented with an opportunity to get involved in MLM, or multi-level marketing. The MLM business model, also known as network marketing, tasks you with recruiting a team of motivated entrepreneurs and leading the whole group to success.

Legitimate MLM businesses can be enormously profitable, but there’s a catch: the failure rate is really high. You see, prospective MLM entrepreneurs tend to underestimate the amount of work involved in team-building. While getting involved in a particular MLM business might seem like a no-brainer opportunity to you, your prospective team members (i.e., the targets) probably won’t be as enthusiastic. The unexpected rejection can prompt discouragement, which is the kiss of death for any entrepreneur.

One thing people overlook is that launching an MLM business is like launching any other business. It takes research and planning. You need to research the business model and your personal skill set to determine if the opportunity is even viable. Then you need to create a plan to grow your business, and that plan must include specific strategies and staggered objectives. Building an MLM business is not as easy as talking to your friends and family.

If you aren’t sure where to begin this planning process, you can retain an MLM consultant to help you. An MLM consultant can provide insights that will keep you from getting shot down with unexpected surprises.

One MLM Consultant with pretty extensive experience is LaunchSmart. The company has been working with MLM entrepreneurs for more than 20 years, guiding those business owners to success. What sets LaunchSmart apart is its experience working directly with MLM giants, such as Herbalife, Tupperware, AmeriPlan and Prepaid Legal. You can learn more about LaunchSmart, its client list and its four-step system at www.launchsmart.com.

It’s not an uncommon situation for B2B service providers: you spend hours consulting with your prospective customer, get that prospect to put his inked pen to the contract, and then it all goes south. Seemingly, at the very moment your prospect will retain your services, his phone rings. On the other end of the line is a slick salesperson who promises the world and plants the seed of doubt. Next thing you know, your prospect is on the fence between the rosy world of dreams and the real world, where your business operates.

The world of Web marketing seems, at times, like auto repair or psychotherapy: the customer is at the mercy of the service provider. When the service provider says you need a new timing belt or six months of biweekly sessions, you may not have the know-how to doubt the diagnosis or the recommendation. In Web marketing, sales people routinely diagnosis your problem as poor search visibility and recommend expensive and unnecessary solutions to get you “to the top of Google.” (continue reading…)

We set up a Twitter account ages ago and then neglected it for months. Although we have been managing a few other accounts for different purposes, we never put the time behind building our own follower base. About two weeks ago, with a paltry 60 followers, we launched an experiment with one objective: get to 1000 followers without spending more than a few minutes a day. We passed that milestone earlier this week.

We reached the goal by using various free and paid Twitter tools. Here’s the run down of the tactics we used:

• Socialoomph.com. We created a free Socialoomph account and starting using the Auto-follow and automated welcome message feature. Auto-follow checks your follower base periodically and automatically follows anyone who’s already following you. The welcome feature, as the name implies, sends out a welcome message to new followers.
• Twellow.com. We listed our account for free at Twellow.com. A quick Google search will point you to many other Twitter directories.
• Tweepsearch.com. We used Tweepsearch.com to search profiles for various keywords pertaining to our business. Tweepsearch allows you to run broad searches, and then narrow your results down by searching within a certain user’s follower base. Once you hone down your list of results to a manageable number, a “Follow All” option appears. This task is implemented by TweepML.org, and it empowers you to follow dozens of users at once.
• Hootsuite.com. Hootsuite.com has an efficiently laid out interface that lets you view all of the activity on your account pretty quickly. You can also manage more than one account, without having to log in and out of Twitter. We used Hootsuite to tweet (of course), but also to track mentions and retweets, and to respond to others’ tweets.
• Mentions. Promoting your existing followers attracts new followers. Mention your followers and retweet your followers’ most interesting posts. Join the conversation and you’ll make new friends.
• Hummingbird 2. Hummingbird was the only paid Twitter tool we used. The software is $97, which isn’t cheap, but we found it to be a huge time-saver. Hummingbird monitors conversations for your specified keywords and automatically follows users who meet stated criteria. If you reach the 2000-marker, where you are capped on following more people, Hummingbird automatically unfollows those who aren’t following you back, one at a time. Once you set it up and turn it on, Hummingbird can run in the background.

If you’re not ready to spend the money on Hummingbird, you could duplicate the functionality on your own. Set aside 30 minutes a day to search keywords and reach out to new users.

Keep in mind that the above list references only a tiny slice of the tools and strategies available for promoting your profile on Twitter. Also remember that mass following and unfollowing can get you banned, so don’t get reckless in your actions.

The above actions helped us get to 1000 followers in a relatively short period of time. The next challenge is to get to 2000…and that may take a little longer. We’ve hit the 2000 limit on the number of people we can follow. So we’ll keep you posted.

What are your favorite Twitter tools?

*Post disclosure: this post contains an affiliate link to Hummingbird. All opinions are mine.*

SmallBusinessNewz published a great video explaining the factors that must be included in any valid contract.

The contract documents an agreement between two parties, usually you and your customer or you and your vendor. Contracts serve the important function of defining who does what in the relationship. For example, you build a Web site for XYZ Company, and XYZ Company pays you for that Web site.

Your contracts should include these elements:

• Identification of the parties to the contract
• Mutual consent between or among the parties of the contract
• Definition of the actions being agreed upon
• Consideration (what you get for what you do)

See the video here.

1. Get bloggers to talk about you. Approach bloggers in your niche and ask if they’d be interested in writing about you and your company. This is like pitching a story idea to your local newspaper; make sure you have an angle that would appeal to the blogger’s audience. You could offer to write up the content for the blogger and to link back to the blog. Alternatively, you could buy reviews through SponsoredReviews.com.
2. Pay for pop-unders. Pop-unders, which you can get from VisitorBoost.com, can drive loads of traffic to your site for a very small investment. We’re talking like $50 for 10,000 users in the U.S. The drawback is that you can’t really target this traffic very well, so make sure you are directing visitors to a compelling landing page. Test it out with a small investment first to see if the traffic will result in additional leads or sales.
3. Distribute free press releases. Try OnlinePRNews.com or PRlog.org for free press release distribution.
4. Trade banners. Join a free banner trade program, such as WhamBanners.com. The trick here is that you need to have traffic to get traffic. If you have more than one site, show the banners on your high traffic site to get traffic for your low traffic site. This allows you to broaden your exposure beyond your existing site network.
5. Get active in online communities. Join online communities that are relevant to your business. Put your link in your signature block and start contributing useful and relevant insights to the conversation. Also try searching for questions relevant to your business niche in Yahoo! Questions, and put your link in the resource box.
6. Start tweeting. Twitter can drive traffic to your site if you are patient and respectful of the community etiquette. First, make sure your site link is in your profile. Then start tweeting daily and get proactive about following others. Search profiles and conversations to find people in your industry and follow them. Follow back those who follow you. Tweet free advice and quotes, and retweet interesting stuff published by others.
7. Try uber-targeted Facebook ads. With Facebook pay-per-click advertising, you can get super specific about who gets to see your ad. A more specific audience base means a higher cost-per-click, but it also means fewer clicks. In the end, you aren’t likely to end up paying very much–and what you do pay for should be some nice, prequalified leads.