Promoting Your Small Business on the Web in 2010

Listed below are a selection of articles on how to get started promoting your business online. These again range from the beginner to the advanced.I have covered a range of categories from social media to blogging, to link building and SEO. This list is intended to get you out the door with promoting your business online covering the basics from across the internet marketing spectrum. There are many good articles and authors out there, so I have chosen the best to get anyone started building an internet presence.

1. 40 Key Elements to Getting Started in Social Media by Louis Gray

2. How to Promote a Small Business Website by Small Business Trends

3. 10 Ways to Be a Great Social Media User by Search Engine Journal

4. 62 Ways to Use Twitter for Business by Web Worker Daily

5. 10 Key SEO Strategies Every Facebook Owner Should Know by Inside Facebook

6. 13 Tips for Marketing Your Business with Your Blog by Pro Blogger

7. 10 Secrets for Creating Viral Content by The Future Buzz

8. 5 Important Web Video Lessons for Small Business Owners by Mashable

9. Link Mixology: The 12 Kinds of Links Your Site Needs by Michelle Macpherson

10. Local Search Ranking Factors by David Mihm

11. Definitive Guide to Word of Mouth Marketing by Samir Balwani

I hope these articles give everyone a good start to building more business online in 2010. If you have any comments or articles that you suggest please let me know.

I spent some time yesterday looking at CRM products (Customer Relationship Management). Since I am in the service business I have to organize many aspects from web development to sales.

What I was looking for was a CRM that would allow 3 main functions which MS Outlook cannot perform well. These include: 1.Organizing my client data. 2. Adding products and services. 3. Forecasting sales. The latter being the most important as it tends to be the thing I least like to do and also one of the most important activates. It also had to be easy and simple.

Price was important as was being able to export my data back to my desk top. I did not want to host the product or have to run it off my own computer. Thus I was interested in a web based platform.

So as not to cheapen the aspects of CRM, I will say that CRM choices are complex and sophisticated at the same time. There are many different aspects to delivering accurate data. With Social Media relevance and tracking on the rise, CRM’S are likely to become even more technical. If you want a detailed breakdown of CRM’S I find that Wikipedia does a pretty good job.

Back to the task at hand, I narrowed down my selection to 4 possibilities.

___________________________________________________________

If you want any amount of functionality to perform anything beyond MS Outlook you have to go with a paid version, vTiger withstanding. However if you want to use vTiger you will have to install it on your server if you have one or use a web hosting company. I do happen to have my own server and went through this exercise already with SugarCRM, another open source product. It was a pain then and I don’t expect it will be any more fun now to set up vTiger.

Bottom Line: If you are a small business chances are you are not going to host your own CRM so you are better off going with a paid version of one of these more well known products.

In summary you have to decide whether it is worth your while to make time to use this tool. As the saying goes,” the output is as only as good as the input.” I am an Internet Marketing Consultant and Trainer. It’s me and my wife Maria. We get to do all the work! I find these products take time to use. When I owned part of a health club in Toronto and had hundreds of customers and several employees, it made sense, but for now, until someone comes out with a simpler product I think I will stick with Outlook.

If you are a small business  and want to move your website up the search engines ranks it can be down right confusing to get a handle on the costs and what outcomes you can expect. There are many SEO and search company’s out there to choose from; but how do you choose? How do you evaluate? What are the guide posts for basing your decision.

I read an article written by Matt Mcgee:  Small Business SEO: Costs, Expectations & Realities. He identifes 5 key aspects that will help you evaluate an SEO company.

1. The cost of services can depend on the companies business model.
2. The price can depend on what part of the country you live in.
3. Be wary of a company that charges less that few hundred dollar a month.
4. Talk about Return on Investment (ROI) relative to price.
5. Finally, SEO companies cannot guarantee results.

Let us know if you found this helpful by making a comment!