Tip: 5 things you may not know you can do with attachments in Gmail - Official Gmail Blog

Tip: 5 things you may not know you can do with attachments in Gmail - Official Gmail Blog

Quality Blog Comments and Back Links

The number of back links is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page (though other measures, such as PageRank (a Google quality rating system), are likely to be more important). Outside of SEO, the back links of a webpage may be of significant personal, cultural or semantic interest: they indicate who is paying attention to that page.

That is one of the explanations of back links. Most bloggers want to see the number of back links they have, it means people are reading what they talk about and that they find it valuable.

One of the things I have been seeing lately are low quality back links – just a simple comment that says “this is a great read” and has no intention of participating in the discussion or topic. 

This type of activity is an overt back linking strategy that provides no value to the author, instead is truly self serving for the commenter. As with all internet activity, some people are going to scam the system for personal gain.

Are we, society promoting a lessoning of our ethical standards?  Add your comment and we’ll all see what you think too.

Darrell

Google and the SBA Provide Great Insights

Google and the SBA have partnered and created some videos to explain ways to succeed for small businesses online. This is a great resource for understanding how to use the internet for your small business. It talks about establishing your online presence, web site content, marketing and promoting your business and so much more.

Visit the web site Tools for Online Success and listen to the videos to learn a whole bunch of information that will help your small business succeed.

As always,

Darrell

www.mndwebdesign.com

Marketing Mistakes Made By Small Businesses

 

Not having a website

Potential consumers search the internet when looking for a particular something. Without a web site, you are invisible to the sale and are missing the connection. Having a web site says that you want their business and have a professional interest in doing business with the interested consumer. The image of a web site reflects your brand and solidifies your ties with the community. A quality website will not only bring customers but build trust and authority.

A poor quality website

Friends, neighbors, relatives or in-laws have the ability to build a web site. Be careful who you get to build your web site. A poor quality web design could actually cost you money. It directly reflects on the quality you put into your business. Only hire a professional designer who understands at least the basics of usability, SEO and internet marketing principles.

Hosting a blog on a another domain other than your own

Linking and followers add credibility to your brand, website and business. If there are links to your great blog postings, the credit will go to the hosting domain in the search results. Keep in mind that you want your web site, business and the contents of your blog to be related to your own domain. Have your webmaster install and you maintain your own blog. Feeds to syndication can be set up for just about any type blog that is installed. You will get more connected results in the search engines.

Failing to promoting your website

Now that you have a web site what do you do? Promote your site; it's an extension of your business. You have invested marketing dollars into the creation of a beautiful and fully functional web site, promote it. There are hundreds of millions of sites out there and a lot of them are just sitting there waiting for customers to visit. Use the URL address in your local marketing; add the web site address to your business cards. Any public marketing that you do should include a reference to your web site. Promote your web site through blogging, facebook, merchant circle, linkedin and a myriad of other online social groups.

Not investing in social media marketing

Social media is the new way to build your brand and reputation online. It's a great, low cost marketing tool with a huge potential. With Facebook surpassing Google as the most visited site on the web it's hard not to notice the change. 2010 is certainly the year of social media and we'll see social media marketing play a major role in the marketing world this decade. Investing it in now will definitely bring in results down the road.

Monitoring & analyzing results is a must

One of the simplest ways to monitor and analyze traffic is with the use of a traffic counter. A simple traffic counter can be created from statcounter.com. It's simple to use and simple to code, just join and you will be given the opportunity to embed the code into your web page.

Most hosting companies will give you the ability to "turn on" analytics. The analysis tools available will give you an idea of what key words were used to locate you page, but they will also let you identify where the visitor came from , how long they stayed. You can monitor the results of changes to your web site to validate the return on investment and continue to make minor changes to enhance that return. It takes time, but the time is worth it when it comes to making your web site a successful branch of your business.

Engineers Trying To Be Instructors

The economy has determined that a lot of small companies don't have the luxury of having a unique and separate training department. The individuals that are delivering the training are the engineers that develop and maintain the product. Other small companies have sales people deliver training, while that's good for the company; it's not good for the customer.

Do your engineers and sales people have the necessary skills to delivery adult learning? Are the people that are delivering the training products for your company versed in Adult Learning?

As a professional instructor with years of experience with fortune 500 companies, small businesses and a national university, I have the skill set to teach your team the right delivery skills.

Make your customer (student/learner) experience the best that it can be. Let me provide the training for the people that are going to deliver the necessary information to help your company compete.

I have compiled a complete course that will give necessary information and experience to your training delivery staff the professional skill set to deliver a great experience to your customer.

Please feel free to contact me.

Darrell Mishler

Opportunities to share your business

It's no secret that I'm on dialysis. Waiting for a new kidney, but just yesterday a situation came up that has driven me to do some research. I have also been a faculty member for the University of Phoenix and had my own training department for a small software firm. Where is this leading?

Well, it's leading to distance or online learning. My wife and I are working with an organization that provides home dialysis. They want to have a meeting (face-to-face) at their training facility and for us that's at least a two hour drive, one way. I suggested that they learn how to use the online resources to provide introductory or orientation training and even over the phone, you could see the blank stare on the face of the young man.

Product demonstrations, presentations as well as full fledged training can be accomplished online. There are applications that facilitate these types of delivery. Over the next couple of years, more and more people are going to have access to broad band internet access and being prepared to expand you ability has to start now.

Applications that provide the ability to address the customer directly are freely available. Just a few free ones are Yugma Skype Edition, Dimdim and Acrobat.com. While you can have multiple attendees on Yugma and Dimdim, you can only have three using Acrobat.com and sometimes all you need is a couple of people. Select the decision makers or end users that are important to your business. If you have your own web site and hosting service you can have your own branded application, Openmeetings, just have your web master install and activate it.

I am the web master for our local Habitat for Humanity and am planning on installing Openmeetings for us and start using it to train-the-trainers for our community outreach. There will be plenty of opportunity for it to pay for itself.

Hoping and helping your business grow,

Darrell

Promote Your Brand, Grow Your Business

Launching your business online takes some forethought and planning. That’s sometimes a daunting statement, but a little pre-planning can go a long way. Do I want to just publish a web site and wait for the multitudes of customers to come to me – ah, but if it only worked that way. You will have to “advertise” your site in order for people to find it.

You’ve got a great brand name like Hardware Hank or Habitat for Humanity, take advantage of the existing brand and join online networking that can promote your brand (site) without having to re-invent the wheel.

I am working on a site for the Aitkin County Habitat for Humanity; we all know the premise, a hand up, not a hand out. I want our projects, homes and volunteers to get the most exposure possible. Making donating as easy as possible is also a good reason to “get the information out there”.

Social networking is an extremely cost effective to get the message out, the Aitkin County Habitat for Humanity now has accounts on FaceBook, Merchant Circle and LinkedIn. It took probably 45 minutes each to set up the accounts and there is now a greater web presence for the Aitkin County Habitat for Humanity.

Darrell Mishler
M & D WebDesign