This blog post was written by Bobby Gaglini, who works on the external marketing team at Vistaprint, and specializes in search marketing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) keywords. They can drive any website owner crazy. But, with some research and solid writing skills, conquering your keywords will be easy instead of exhausting.
This blog post was written by Bobby Gaglini, who works on the external marketing team at Vistaprint, and specializes in search marketing.
There’s a lot more to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) than just keywords, links and content generation. In fact, there’s always something that you can do every day to improve your website and get your business seen by more potential customers. Here are five more advanced tricks to help aid your website’s SEO performance: Read more…
This post is written by Kristen Johnson, a member of Vistaprint’s social media team who focuses on content marketing.
Facebook has revamped its search engine with the recent launch of Graph Search. The name “Graph Search” refers to the network of friends, or social graph, that Facebook users have created over the years and are now able to rediscover. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg refers to this new piece of functionality as the “third pillar to Facebook’s ecosystem,” in addition to the newsfeed and timeline. This new social search product allows users to sift through years of Facebook content and filter results by likes, check-ins, photo tags, and much more. Read more…
This post is written by Cristina Sousa, a content specialist on Vistaprint’s Social Media team.
When it comes to blogging, it can be difficult to get started…and to keep writing. Here are six quick tips that we like to keep in mind when we’re blogging.
Read more…
This guest post comes from Samuel Johns, who works on the Organic Search team here at Vistaprint.
Whether you’re already using linking techniques within your site, or you’d like to learn more about the usefulness of links, this article will provide you with an easy-to-understand “what,” “how,” and “why” when it comes to linking. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to set up links correctly to ensure the best experience for your users and for search engines. Read more…
Yesterday afternoon SEO.com posted an infographic on Small Business and Marketing. The graphic included a number of great statistics on small business owners and their marketing. Below are five that jumped off the page to us:
For a full breakdown of the sources used to create the infographic, please click here.
Hey everyone, hope you have had a great week and that you weren’t hit with any of the snow reported over the past few days across the country. This week was a busy one in the editorial offices of Micro Business Perspectives and we’re looking forward to watching some football this weekend. Our team is primarily pulling for the Patriots this weekend with one exception, who are you pulling for? This week’s edition of the Micro Business Roundup is filled with topics ranging from retirement to growing your business. Hope you enjoy it and have a great weekend!
Are You Really in Charge of Your Business? – this article from Entrepreneur focuses on a 17-year old business owner that has his mother questioning his work ethic. While you might think that he’s slacking off, the mom fears that the boy is working himself to death and threatens to shut the business down. Sure many of you reading this blog are not children, there is probably someone that you have to answer to on the time you spend investing in your business. So the question to take away from this is how much is too much?
Why Doesn’t Anyone Check References? – when you hire employees do you check references? Now we aren’t talking just calling up and leaving a message, but really talking to someone and getting a feel for the hire? If you don’t, you are not alone. This article from the New York Times notes that an employer with many temporary workers has only been called 10 times in the past 30 years about former employees and it opens up the question as to why businesses are not inquiring about potential employees.
When I Retire, I Want To … – have you ever thought about what retirement means to you? Will you be living in the Florida Keys or just spending more time with family?
Your New PR and SEO Year – as the first full work week of the New Year comes to an end; many of us are staring at our resolutions and starting to forget about them already. If your business resolution was to build up more awareness for your business, be sure to read and bookmark this article from Startup Nation on SEO and PR.
Take The Time to Grow Your Business – this article offers you three steps to grow your business. None are overly daunting and will make you take a step back and wonder why you may have overlooked them in the past.
Image - markb120
Over the past few months, you may have heard a lot about Google’s new social networking site Google+, which is set to take on the powerhouse social site Facebook. While you may be hesitant to create another social networking platform that will require you to monitor and engage with, Google+ does offer some unique capabilities. Google+ features include more control over what information you share with Circles, connecting with customers using Hangouts, and because Google+ runs on the powerful Google search network, the platform can help give your business more SEO value.
To help you get your Google+ business page up, follow these few instructions:
1.) Visit Create a Google+ Page to get started (NOTE: You will need a personal Google account to get started). Select the category that best describes your micro business (“Local Business or Place,” “Product or Brand,” or “Company, Institute or Organization” will likely be your best options). If you don’t feel your micro business fits in any of the given categories, you can simply select “Other” where you can enter your page name and website. You will not be required to provide any additional narrowing information of category selection.
2.) Continue through each step filling in all relevant information to your business. You will also be prompted to add a business logo. PRO TIP: Keep your information consistent with your website, Facebook page and other marketing materials to keep that clean, uniformed look.
3.) Once you’ve created your Google+ business page, you’ll be prompted to add additional information to your page to help give visitors a better idea of what your business provides.
4.) Similar to the five photos you can have on your Facebook page, you’ll be prompted to fill in your photostrip. These five photos will be displayed underneath your page’s name and tagline. Be sure you add photos that best represent your micro business. Images of your product or your service in action will likely work best.
5.) That’s it! You’ve created a Google+ page for your micro business that will give your customers another way to connect with you, as well as another location for potential customers to find you within Google search results.
So I’ve created a Google+ business page, now what? You’re probably curious what benefit a Google+ business page has over your existing Facebook business page. One advantage utilized by brands of all sizes is that you can follow your customers back and organize them into different Circles. So you could create a Circle for your loyal/VIP customers to share special deals and other, a Circle for all customers to share general news and promotions. You could even make a Circle for your employees as a way to share news, trends, etc. without others seeing. The ability to create new Circles gives you unlimited possibilities of organization and communication options!
Outside of that, continue to update your Google+ page with content as you would with Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.
Still need assistance? Feel free to check out these helpful Google Learn More videos.
Hello and happy Friday from (still snowy) New England! While our area continues to recover from record amounts of early arrival snow, we came across a few interesting small business articles that we thought may be of interest to you. Topics range from the idea that search engines are being used less to how the power of smell can help land holiday sales. We hope you have a nice and relaxing weekend and please enjoy this weeks edition of Micro Business Roundup.
Why my Search Engine Use Is Dwindling and Why Yours Will Too – What if you spent the past few months trying to build up your SEO “juice” only to find out it was all for nothing? Do you think we’d ever come to a time where that could actually happen? According to John Jantsch at DuctTapeMarketing.com, it’s an idea that could possibly be happening now. Jantsch discusses how his use of search engine sites is slowly being replaced by the use of applications (“apps”) the accuracy to provide the answers he wants/needs relevant his immediate query. Has your search usage switched from search engines to applications, or are you still relying on Google to provide you answers?
Is Social Media Killing Your Business? – How does your micro business utilize social media (if you’re engaged in social media, of course)? While this growing platform can be an asset to your business, it can also detract from your overall efforts as well. This recent OpenForum.com post takes a look at different ways social media hurts your business. We’d be interested to hear how you view social media… is it a positive for your business, or do see it as a negative?
5 Ways to get that Federal Contract – Did you know there are more than $500 million worth of contract money handed out by the federal goverment each year? Ever wonder how your small, micro business could get a piece of the action? This Washington Post article offers five useful tips that small businesses such as yourself can utilize to get a piece of the (large) pie. While the application process could be tedious, the reward can be lucrative to the success and growth of your business.
Street Walking in a Nutshell – We came across this short piece from the folks at Small Business Bonfire on a great topic, street walking marketing. The author, Jason Gregory, chats briefly about the importance of being upfront with signage and marketing materials so that your potential customers will not be left guessing what it is exactly that your business offers. Is your micro business upfront about what it provides, or do you use an element of mystery to help attract potential buyers?
How Cinnamon Smells Will Save Holiday Sales – Does a specific smell effect your purchasing behavior? According to this recent Inc.com article, how your brick and mortar store smells could play a factor in your customers purchasing behavior. With the recent reports that consumer holiday shopping will drop this year, businesses will have to up their game to capitalize off of holiday sales. To help you get started with having your business smelling right, the article offers five senses you can utilize to encourage customers to buy.
Hello everyone and happy Friday! Much like running a micro business, you never know what you’re going to encounter living in the Northeast. From experiencing a rare earthquake earlier this week, to expecting hurricane-like conditions over the weekend, it’s never a dull moment. In this week’s edition of the Micro Business Roundup, we’ve compiled five great articles on small and micro business that you may have missed this week. Topics range tips to make your business more efficient to steps to make your SEO efforts payoff better for you. Please be sure to let us know if there are any articles that we may have missed in the comments below. Please have a safe and relaxing weekend!
5 Tips to Make Your Small Business More Efficient – Whether you realize it or not, the efficiency in which you run your micro business can determine how smoothly your company runs, as well as how successful it becomes. No matter how efficient you may be, it never hurts to review your activities and see how you can become better. To help get you started, feel free to check out these five tips from SmallBizDaily.com. Our favorite tip was don’t be to be superman/superwoman.
When Giving Away Your Product Or Service For Free Is A Smart Move – As most of you who read this site know, much of Vistaprint’s success is credited to it’s ability to give products away to help attract (and retain) customers. If you’re thinking about giving away your product or service for free to help generate customers, there’s a few things you’ll want to keep in mind. This recent OpenForum.com post showcases a small business that gave away it’s product and the gains and setbacks they experienced in doing so. Have you ever given your product away? What were the results? 
Choosing Between Profits and Growth – It’s a nice choice to have… do you gear your business towards short-term profits? Or do you look at long-term growth? Businesses of all sizes are different in what they want. To help give you some prospective, this New York Times article looks at one company that is in the midst of making this decision. If asked today, what direction are you guiding your business? Obviously both are always welcome, but when making decisions, what thought process are you thinking?
How to Craft Your Personal Brand Statement – Does your micro business have a personal brand statement? If you do not, we highly recommend checking out this recent article from SmallBizTrends.com. Not only does it shed light on why you should have a personal brand statement, but it also offers tips on how to help you get started.
How Should a Small Business Plan Their SEO? – It’s a valid question… how are you planning your SEO strategy? We’ve discussed SEO planning a lot on Micro Business Perspectives, but we wanted to offer an outside opinion on the subject. This recent BigMarketingSmallBusiness.com article takes you through six easy steps to help evaluate your SEO thought-process and help make you more effective. How has your recent SEO efforts worked out?
Image courtesy of scoremonroe.org
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