Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

If there is one thing alot of small business owners have in common, it’s lack of capital. There’s also lack of time, but that’s a whole different post, even though it is a huge roadblock for many when it comes to blogging.

There are many different ways to attract business, but blogging can be one of the most cost effective forms of small business marketing. Blogging levels the playing field. It doesn’t matter how small or large your business is when it comes to a blog…it’s all about content and content is king on the Internet.

What is a blog?
A blog is a series of articles, stories, posts, tips, ideas and any other information that will help visitors understand how your business BENEFITS THEM. Its a way to educate the public, create relevant and searchable content for search engines. It’s articles that will help people use and understand your product, no matter what it is.

What a blog shouldn’t be:
A series of posts and advertisements about your business… The ME…ME…ME should only be sprinkled in….lightly.

What should I blog about?
Your blog should include helpful information about how to use your products, articles that have to do with your product. It should allow people to get to know you. If your a Realtor, you would write blog posts about the real estate market, possibly mortgage tips, area comps, homes for sale, how to choose a Realtor, why marketing includes open houses, how to stage, how to determine the listing price, etc. etc.

Dentist, chiropractors, doctors can use blogs as a way to grow their practices by providing information on health and wellness. Why check-ups are important, patient stories, (with patient permission) with examples of how people have changed their lives, gotten healthy or are staying healthy. It allows people to get to know you as well. What you care about, who you are as a person and why people would want to do business with you.

A few tips for your blog;

Don’t assume because you created a blog post, Google will automatically find your site. You must invite Google to crawl your site by submitting your site and your “site-map” to Google. There are tools in Word Press like “All in One SEO Pack” that can make this process pretty simple and I encourage you to add them to your blog as soon as possible, to get Google invited to the party.

Your blog should ALWAYS include a way to reach you, follow you, like you, etc. Including an RSS feed and encouraging people to subscribe is also important. Having a “Contact Me” form is a must. You have to make it easy for people to reach out to you in the way that works best for THEM, if you can accommodate that method. Giving options meeting people where they are…how can that be a bad thing?

I hope you’re encouraged to find time to blog. It’s a way to share your passions and what got your business started, what drives you and how you can help. Blogging needs to be part of a weekly routine and scheduled in, so it always happens. It’s as important as keeping the phone lines or the lights on.

P.S. Thank you for taking your time to visit and hope you find the information useful. I hope to help you learn everything you want and need to know about blogging. I welcome your questions (site specific is good) and definitely your suggestions. I hope to answer your questions before they come up or when you find that you have one. By clicking on the Orange RSS Feed button on the left side of the screen, you will be automatically updated of new information available without having to "check in" to see what's new. It's the easiest way to keep up to date. Thanks again for stopping in, I value your time!

In December, it is traditionally a slow time for us as PrinterBees. It seems the normal online printing business we usually enjoy, appreciate and are so thankful for comes to an abrupt halt during the holiday season.  It’s a trend we now recognize, but what to do, what to do, what to do.

 

I still have people, vendors and expenses that need to be paid and I don’t like not being profitable. I am not a big risk taker when it comes to finances and a small dip in the red FREAKS ME OUT! Okay..I said it!

 

Now, I need to figure out what to do to compensate for our lack of steady business printing during what is the busy season for most, the holiday season. With a big duh! I realized that we need to print more holiday cards, after all that’s what people are printing in December. We need to beef up our designs to appeal to the “consumer side” of our B2B customers, with the thousands is clients we have, there has to be a portion of them that print holiday cards! These clients already use us for printing, they know the quality is awesome, but they think of PrinterBees as a business printer, not a holiday card printing site where you print holiday cards that are sent out to family.

 

We are a bit late to the party, but I’d rather be late than not show up at all. After looking at the collection of holiday cards available on Vista Print, that have been there for years, I have determined that we will be able  we will be able to use the collection of holiday cards for years to come as well.  We are adding about 50 new holiday card designs to the site today. It was a design frenzy, which will happen when so late to to the “Holiday Card Printing” party. I feel really good about the new designs we have and only hope we aren’t so late to the party that it doesn’t help.

 

Time for lots of praying and I hope you will stop by the PrinterBees site tomorrow when the new cards are launched. They really are very nice and our prices are better than most. Wish us luck!!!

I’ll keep this short and sweet. I have had hard drives crash before, I have lost data like family photos and baby pictures. It’s like missing chapters of my life. I have learned my lesson the hard way and had to let go of those memories because I wasn’t about to spend what could have been thousands of dollars to restore my data. Even if I was willing to, I likely couldn’t have afforded it, I felt defeated, upset and super pissed off at myself. There was a time in my career that I sold “back-up” solutions, believe me, I knew how important it was.

Not having important data backed up is simply stupid in this day and age. I don’t mean to be rude, but I do mean to get your attention. Don’t become a statistic. Backing up your data is way easier than you think. Now days, it’s totally automated once you set it up.

If your the “statistics type” (like myself), I located some stats from a data recover company. My Managed Back-Up

• A hard drive crashes every 15 seconds
• 2,000 laptops are stolen or lost every day
• 32% of data loss is caused by human error
• 31% of PC users have lost all of their PC files to events beyond their control
• 25% of lost data is due to the failure of a portable drive
• 44% of data loss caused by mechanical failures
• 15% or more of laptops are stolen or suffer hard drive failures
• 1 in 5 computers suffer a fatal hard drive crash during their lifetime

Are you at risk of losing your files? Onsite backup is not enough. Choose the MyPC Backup Online Backup Service!

It’s super affordable to protect your data, which is your greatest asset as a business owner. To protect it costs less than $10 a month, to restore it if have a hard drive failure without a back up…THOUSANDS!

This should not be on your “to do” list…this should be on your “completed” tasks list because there really isn’t anything more important in your business than protecting the data that makes up your business. Not to mention all the personal items you keep on your computer, which can’t be replaced. Just do it, you’ll feel so much better once you do. Trust me!

This article originally appeared on Real Estate Marketing Guru

 

If you have been kind enough to be reading my blog or find it useful at all, I am thankful. It’s important to keep things consistent and to keep blogging regularly about a subject I feel passionate about. If you’ve read the blog, you know this blog has been dedicated to helping people learn how to blog.

As I try to decide what exactly it is I will write about (every bloggers biggest challenge), I realized that I am leaving out so much content that really matters to me personally and I hope will helpful to you. I love blogging and I love teaching people how to do it, that part won’t change…but you can expect to see changes moving forward.

This blog will not only provide great content to help with your blogging efforts, it will now also include everything about running a small business, tips on marketing your business and the struggles and HIGHLIGHTS of being a mother of five children who works from home.

I got to thinking that I am a real person, with real challenges that are likely part of your daily life too. Maybe, just maybe if I am a little more open about exactly who I am, what I do and how I do it, it may be helpful to someone else.

I have a pretty complex life and schedule, it really is completely insane! I’m not sure why I couldn’t share how I do what I do….answer your questions and possibly get some great advice from readers when it comes to my challenges as a business owner/wife/mother/daughter/sister/friend.

I am a student of life and look forward to sharing more of “myself“, but also look forward to hearing your thoughts, comments and advice on the things that come up.

The question of the day…Should I try to build my own blog site or should I hire a professional?

Let’s go over the advantages and disadvantages of both…

Do It Yourself:

• If you create your own blog, it will take time away from whatever it is keeps you busy now.
• Building your own blog without the help of a professional designer and the assistance of what to include/not include could keep your blog from reaching its full potential.
• If you consider yourself to be pretty “techy” and like this sort of thing, I encourage you to dig in and get your fingers “dirty”, if indeed you will actually follow through, the key here being…will you actually follow through and get it done?
• By creating your own blog, you are in control and don’t have to depend on someone else to make changes and updates that are often needed on any website.  You created it, so you know how to change it, update it or fix it if need be!
• If you don’t happen to have an eye for what looks good and create your own blog, you may get visitors to your blog that “bounce” the second they arrive because your blog isn’t inviting or looks cluttered.

If you do decide to create your own blog, we do encourage you to create a custom look and feel to your web blog and the easiest program to do that is Artisteer.  It requires NO PRIOR web design knowledge or experience and could not be more user friendly.  It is a great program and they do offer a free demo.  Visit this link for a full video tutorial on how to use the program.  The tutorial shows you how to build a simple, but completely custom blog theme in 5 minutes!  Yes, the video is 5 minutes with no outtakes or secret shortcuts.  The whole blog template is built in 5 minutes.  Watch the tutorial now.

Hire A Professional:

• Hiring a professional to set up your blog in most cases is a one-time fee because once a blog is set up it is done.  I have many clients who hire me to do exactly this because they either don’t have the time or just choose not to do it themselves.  It is not that time consuming for someone like myself that has done it many times and very cost effective if you have the funds available.  Feel Free To Contact Me For a Quote.
• A professional will most likely set up your blog to match your company website or be able to integrate your company logo by using design software that you may not be familiar with.  As mentioned above, check out Artisteer and the tutorials to see if this is something you simply wish to take on yourself.  It really is easy with a little video training!
• Hiring a professional will require a small investment, but typically when you have some “skin in the game” you are more likely to follow through with the actual blogging.
• Your blog will need to have some structure to it and a professional will obviously have more insight in to creating that structure.

NOTE: If you do choose to hire a professional to create your blog site, make sure that your agreement includes training on how to log in, create blogs, and manage the site.  There isn’t a lot to managing a blog other than adding “blogs” (content and articles) regularly, but you will need some guidance to get you started.  If your designer doesn’t include training, you are strongly encouraged to “pass” and find one that does.

As you can see there are benefits to both.  You may possible wish to try designing and creating your own blog if you feel you have the time to do so.  If you find you aren’t succeeding at it, then hire a professional.  What have you got to lose!

It is also important to subscribe to this blog because I offer ongoing tips on how to add “widgets” and plug ins on how to make money with your blog and stay consistent with it!  Subscribe now

If you aren’t sure exactly how to subscribe to an RSS or what an RSS feed is, click here to learn what it is and how to do it.  Once you learn about RSS feeds, you will understand how much time and energy they will save you!

• I am often asked how to go about choosing the right keywords to optimize for with regards to Google and I have to tell you that it really is no easy task, it does take research and more importantly it takes time.  For companies that provide SEO services, one of the most time consuming aspects of doing SEO for any website, is determining the right keywords to optimize for.   There are several factors to consider when choosing your keywords and I am hoping this article will help explain what to look for and how to do it yourself.

• What needs to be considered when choosing your keywords is the following:

1. Who am I trying to attract?
2. What might they be looking for (“Googling”) when they enter a search term
3. How will I identify the most qualified prospects, the ones looking to make a purchase?
4. What is the competition for the keyword?  When you “Google” the keyword, how many results come up?  Is it 35,000,000 or is it 500,000?  Obviously it will be much more difficult to compete with 35 Million other websites vs. 1/2 million.
5. How many people are actually searching the keyword you wish to optimize for?
6. What words are “related” to the keywords you are optimizing for?  This is called your “semantic keywords”.  Semantic keywords are explained in the youtube video below.

   Here is the link to the Google Adwords/Keyword Tool so you can try it yourself
   The keyword we are after is “door hanger printing”, so you can Google it to see how we are doing.

• I encourage you to watch the video, which will explain how to accomplish what I have listed above.  It is also VERY important that you you use the tools Google makes available to you to increase your chances of being indexed.  If this all seems like a bit more work than you have time for.  I do have a team of people who do much of my SEO.  It is very time consuming, but if you have more time than money, I do encourage you to try it on your own first.  What have you to loose?  If you feel like you need help with your SEO and managing it, I provide SEO services for a monthly service fee starting at $499/mo.  The clients I work with do rank, do get traffic and do see an increase in business when we start optimizing their sites.  The investment pays for itself several times over.  Again, following all of the tutorials included here will help you to rank yourself.

Follow the series of videos to see how the rankings are coming along for “door hanger printing” and if what we are doing is working or not.

I have mentioned many times that the easiest way to add video to your site is by using “The Flip” video camera that is the size of a small cell phone or deck of cards and records in Hi-Definition.  The prices start at $149, so they are super cheap!  Here is a link to the blog about how easy it is to add media to your blog.

I just got word of a special. Here is the link to take advantage of the sale. Great Camera!!!! Seriously, I use mine all the time and don’t tell the IRS…but I use it for family stuff too!

$10 Off on Flip Camcorders with Coupon Code”Flip10“: Mino, MinoHD,Ultra, and UltraHD-Special Terms Apply Exp. 9/30/09

• One of the biggest struggles with any technology related business is learning what you need to know AND being able to keep up with it as it changes continually.

• A couple of years ago I stumbled upon the most amazing on-line video university that offered anything and everything IO needed to learn with over 81,350 Video Tutorials to chose from. I have been able to learn anything and everything I ever wanted to know about any subject I could think of when it comes to technology.  The best part is the cost! $30 a month! $30 a month for 24 hour access to over 81,000 videos to teach me whatever it is I need to know from blogging, SEO, website design, PHP, SQL and they even offer language courses now!  The name of the website I am speaking of is VTC.com, which stands for Video Training Company.  I myself have learned many of the important Adobe Creative Suite products like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Indesign and Illustrator by taking the courses.

• I won’t lie, there have been a few instructors that I simply couldn’t follow or keep up with the way the explained things, but for the most part, anytime I get stuck when it comes to technology, I can log in to my VTC account, do a search for the subject and find a tutorial, a VIDEO tutorial from some expert who will show me what I need to do, step by step. There have been many times when working in Photo Shop, which I learned how to use by taking VTC courses where I have gone back and watched the same video 6 times, because I forgot how to do whatever it was I needed to do because it had been awhile. I can go right back to that chapter in the training and get trained on it again it about five minutes. This is the other reason I really love the training offered through VTC, it isn’t like sitting in a class and hoping I got it the first time the teacher explained it. I can go back and review as many times as I like for my $30 a month fee.

• They do offer a free trial so you can see if their video training is right for you, with 14,200 free videos for you to check out. You are bound to find something you need to know with over 14,000 videos to choose from. Since this blog site is about blogging, maybe you should sample the training they offer on blogging! Here is the link to the blogging video training.

• I have referred many friends to this site and all have been pleased with what they found available. They even offer certain certifications on some classes. It is just a reall great place to keep up and continue learning. Register Here and try it out.

RoboForm – I use Roboform all day, every day and it saves me so0 much time and frustration!   With RoboForm, I am able to keep track of all my passwords, website links, affiliate sites I belong to and so much more.  Click here to check it out!

 

I keep all of my information on a flash drive that is with me at all times. I also keep a back up of it in my Drop Box in the event I loose my drive and then I always have access to my website addresses, log ins and passwords from anywhere in the world.

 

Drop Box - Can I tell you how many times I have been saved by my faithful dropbox, which costs me all of about $9/mo?  Dropbox keeps a copy of files on your hard drive out on the Internet and available from anywhere in the world!  At a seminar yesterday, we needed a Power Point Presentation that wasn’t with us badly.  No Problem!  Pulled up Drop Box, opened the file and was editing it within about 1 minute.  If my hard drive were to crash, while it would SUCK big time…I wouldn’t have the stress of having lost all of my data, because there is an exact copy of it out on the Internet in my Drop Box account.  I also love that it is fully automated!  Click here to check it out and save your data from being lost!

 

A spreadsheet – if you don’t have Roboform - If you get tired of logging in to my affiliate sites to get the same link codes over and over, keep them in a spreadsheet, and make sure to save it in your Drop Box.

 

I personally use the “safe notes” feature in Roboform, because my Roboform is always up and then I don’t have to keep opening files.  When I get a new link code that I know I will want to use again, I copy and paste it in to my Roboform.  All the links are all in one place and I just copy and paste from there.  My recommendation would be to use Microsoft Works, because every windows machine comes with it and you can open it anywhere, even when using a computer that doesn’t have MS Office.  Make sure to note the expiration dates of any of your link codes so you can update them when necessary.

 

Artisteer -  Generate Your Own Word Press themes in Artisteer.  I have mentioned this blogging tool several times because I use it so frequently.  I can create a custom theme in less than 5 minutes if I am in a hurry. I can also get really creative and spend as much time as needed to get it just perfect.  You need absolutely NO PREVIOUS DESIGN EXPERIENCE to use this tool and it is super user friendly and easy to learn.  I have created videos to help you learn even faster – click here to see how fast and easy it is.

Quick Press -  Have you read a great article or had a great thought, but didn’t have the time to write a complete blog?  I use the Quickpress feature in Word Press to make notes to myself about blogs I want to write.  I write some notes, save it as a draft and come back it to later so I don’t loose my thought or idea.  If it is going to be a good blog post, it will still be a good blog post two days later!  I wrote this particular blog post as a draft that I came back to later when I had the time to complete my thoughts on it.

 

Ring Central Phone and Fax- Ring Central is a time saver for bloggers or any small business owner.   This is the service that we use for PrinterBees that makes it “appear” we are in an office location vs. working from a home office.    You have the ability to create extensions for different departments that can all ring to one number, you can accept all of your faxes through Ring Central, to the same number.  All faxes come in through your email and they come through on a PDF so you don’t even have to worry about misplacing pieces of paper and they are very easy to forward to the person who needs to deal with it.  We are very happy customers of Ring Central.