Tips from February 4, 2010 The Small Business tips today discuss common marketing mistakes. Weak Message: It takes people a few minutes and thought to figure out the marketing message you are trying to send.  Focus On You: Talk only about your products, services, and business rather than what you can do for clients. No Call to Action: You attract potential customers to be interested, but do not motivate them to act on their needs and wants and bring revenue to your business. Lack of Follow Up: You receive a potential customer's contact information, but store it instead of following up and close the sale. Daily Overview: A vague advertisement with little motivation and follow up is no way to market to customers. Avoid this by engaging with consumers, strong marketing collateral, and following up. More next week. [Read Full Article]

Everyone makes mistakes. For businesses, mistakes can be the deciding factor for staying in business or closing their doors forever. Many novice small business owners make the same mistakes within the first year of opening their business that causes them to have to close down. Find the top five mistakes and what you can do to prevent them below.Mistake #1) Putting Your Heart & Soul Into Your Business, But NOT Your HeadIt takes  great deal of passion to start a small business. In fact, many small businesses are a result of a passionate idea or organization. It is important to have the strong feeling to get the business off the ground. Unfortunately, that is not enough. As much passion and drive you have for your business, it is important to also think about other factors for your business, especially your finances. Passion doesn’t pay the bills. You need to have a plan from the get-go to be able to determine if you business is simply a passion-driven ide... [Read Full Article]

Tips from February 2, 2010 The Small Business tips today discuss common SEO mistakes. Duplicating Content: Your content is plagiarized, and not original. You lose the optimization of the words on your website if they are not original. Poor Design & Usability: Broken links are killers for SEO. Come up with a creative, yet useful design that your visitors will be able to navigate. Same Meta Description on Each Page: To the SEO world, your websites have the same content. Your meta description should be specific and unique to every page. Over-stuffing Keywords: You are essentially spamming your own website, as it becomes unreadable in SEO terms. This could get you blocked/banned from some search engines or sites, such as Google. Daily Overview: Trying to manipulate SEO to get your website better rankings leads to many mistakes and poor rankings. Avoid this by having a knowledge of the SEO world, track your websi... [Read Full Article]

Tips from February 1, 2010 The Small Business tips today discuss common website mistakes. Poor Maintenance: Broken links, "404 file not found" error messages, and links leading to the wrong place is frustrating for your website visitors. No Contact Information: A website is important for every business, and lacking contact information is detrimental. Address, email, and phone number are crucial. Poor Navigation: Dead pages, no links to your homepage, and disabling the back button on your browser is not only frustrating for visitors but also for web designers. Outdated Information: Old business hours and addresses are misleading to website visitors and potential customers. Old information hurts business, not encourage it.  Daily Overview: Poor upkeep & maintenance are the two biggest mistakes businesses make for their website. Avoid this by testing your website and updating information. [Read Full Article]

Government, Politics, and the Economy Economy Jumps 3.5 Percent to Largest Growth in Two Years Consumer spending, exports and investments experience greatest gains. ManagerSmarter.comManagement and OperationsSmall Shops Make Big Play for Holiday ShoppersMerchants roll out Christmas wares weeks in advance to lure customers away from large discount retailers. WSJ.comManagement and Operations [Read Full Article]

Small businesses have a lot on their plate when it comes to finances as it determines the state of their business.  Many small businesses have trouble managing their finances, and encounter problems without knowing it. Ironically, many of these small businesses having trouble are making the same mistakes. Learn from these top five financial mistakes small businesses make and keep your business in business.  1. Your Business Has No Financial Policies Established Since there are fewer employees who wear many different hats, policies are important for small businesses to establish rules, regulations, and procedures. It is the same for finance matters. Financial policies provide assurance that everything regarding finances is carried out in the same manner. Policies also encourage efficiency, as each employee learns the policies they are more accustomed to how to handle them.  The important policies to have for your small business include handling petty cash, an employee re... [Read Full Article]

Government, Politics, and the Economy Consumer Confidence Soars A step towards the right direction, consumers are now looking positively towards the future in regards to spending, housing, employment, and the economy.  CNNmoney.comManagement and Operations3 Vital Business Lessons from Tiger Woods' PGA LossThe big upset of Tiger Woods losing the prestigious PGA tournament has not only created a buzz in the sports world, but in the business world as well. See how Woods' loss translates into business lessons. BusinessKnowHow.comManagement and Operations [Read Full Article]