Small Business Owners Charge Full Steam Ahead

Small business owners are feeling good about 2013 so far and even more optimistic about the year ahead, according to Manta’s Q1 2013 SMB Wellness Index. The survey of over 1,100 small business owners found more than half (56 percent) think the first quarter of 2013 was successful and 79 percent believe the second quarter will be positive for their companies.

While only 17 percent hired new employees in the first quarter of this year, almost one-third (31 percent) plan to do so in Q2. But that’s not where they’re putting most of their money. Thirty-one percent say they plan to invest most of their money on referrals and finding new customers; 26 percent on online advertising and social media; 24 percent on creating new products and services; and 12 percent on traditional advertising and marketing.…

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The Importance Of Building Global Relationships To The Small Business Owner

The Internet has opened more doors for growth than business owners may realize. Global trade was once thought of as an exotic or inefficient way to do business, but in today’s tech-savvy world, communication with someone on the other side of the planet is as simple as turning on a computer. As the nation’s economic recovery slowly gains momentum, small business owners are finding that working with international partners can help their enterprises stay strong during tough times.

With the new opportunities global markets provide, small businesses often see job growth and productivity increase by up to 20 percent. And it’s not just the company that benefits, but the whole community – working with an offshore manufacturing partner can actually create more jobs at home.…

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5 Reasons Why Your Landing Page is Doomed to Fail

5 Reasons Your Landing Page is Doomed to Fail

The landing page is the critical point in lead conversion; often the deciding factor on whether a visitor turns into a lead or walks away. Therefore, don’t let your entire marketing campaign fail as a result of a single landing page. While evaluating your landing pages, keep an eye out for the following warning signs:

1.   Unclear Call-to-Action

Is your call-to-action clear, compelling, and enticing to the eye? A great call-to-action evokes an emotion in the view, a sense of urgency or reason to click on further. But if visitors are having a difficult time finding the CTA, your landing page is setting itself up for failure.…

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9 Useful Tools for a Small Business to Manage Work Better

A small business requires a lot of work in order to prove successful. You can use all the help you can get in order to manage the work and the employees better. Luckily for you, there are many useful tools available that will make your job much easier.

PandaForm

PandaForm is a great tool which can help you centralize all of your business data into one single database. You can also use it to create many different kinds of forms such as for orders, meetings and customer surveys. The program is also able to export and import the data it gathers and even share it with clients.…

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How to Get Paid What You’re Worth

getting paid what your services are worthFew moments are as energizing in your business as sitting across from a potential client in a meeting that is going well. Your presentation came across smoothly, the client is engaged, they’re ready to buy”¦the only thing left is the price.

You quickly calculate a reasonable price in your head. You know that your competition couldn’t come close to your level of quality – and still you keep your prices in par with theirs.

You tell your prospect your price”¦and the conversation chills. They tell you that they were expecting to pay half of that. What should you do?

Discuss your competition

If what you are offering is genuinely better than the competition, don’t be afraid to highlight your competitors’ weaknesses.…

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11 Steps To Give New Angle To Your Old Content

tips for engaging online readers

When you’re an online marketer, it becomes a necessity to keep adding new angles when it comes to engaging your readers with content. This keeps your readers happy and looking forward to more. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel – just a few imaginative twists and angles now and then are enough to keep the blood flowing.

1. Highlight Words And Phrases

When you want your readers to pay special attention to funny bits, informative bits and quotes, make sure you highlight them. If possible, use a different font for quotes – perhaps even a slightly larger font size. Try to present your top keywords in italics or in bold, to let your reader know that the content is relevant to their search.…

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Monetize And Measure Your Video Marketing With These Two Online Tools

Two Tools to Monetize And Measure Your Video Marketing

SMBs spend either time or money on their website videos. Both are valuable for the owner of an SMB which is why you need to get the most out of your videos. Saying a URL or telling someone to visit your site isn’t enough, you cannot accurately measure this and see what your ROI is. You also don’t get to see your reach or where the traffic comes from.

Here are two tools (with free versions) that will help you see the real return from your video and video marketing efforts:

Viewbix lets you add clickable buttons and calls to action to your website videos.…

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Text Marketing – How To Make It Work For You

Social media marketing is one of the most important and current marketing techniques small businesses and entrepreneurs can employ. Just when small-business owners become accustomed to one type of social media marketing it seems another one crops up.

Although text marketing isn’t brand new, it is an area of social media marketing many have not ventured into. This convenient form of reaching potential customers can help even the busiest entrepreneurs expand and grow their businesses.

Similar to other forms of social media marketing, you must know how to effectively use text marketing and which rules of etiquette to abide by.

  • The History.
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How To Use Google Adwords Remarketing To Improve Your PPC Campaigns

Google AdWords is a great way to rank high on Google search result pages, and now it is supercharged with the power to remarket. The AdWords system works by recognizing keywords typed by users and matching those words to serve up relevant pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Google remarketing places a bit of code on your site that follows all sorts of user behaviors on your site and elsewhere. The code allows Google to serve up laser-targeted, super-relevant PPC ads aimed at re-engaging users and pushing conversion rates higher than ever.

Use Google Adwords Remarketing To Improve PPC Campaigns

In a nutshell, remarketing is based on tracking the content that users have visited before and delivering PPC advertising that makes reference to the users’ previous actions.…

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How to Maintain a Professional and Effective Business Blog

An online marketing tip that professionals will receive time and time again is that it is important to have a company blog. But aren’t blogs just something that teens use to muse about their gossip and favorite TV shows? Not anymore.

Blogs can be a great way for companies to share information, connect with customers, and increase traffic to their website. However, this can only happen if the blog is created and maintained correctly.

tips for maintaining a professional business blog

To get readers to take your company blog seriously, it is important that the blog does not look like a boring default WordPress blog. You can instantly add flare and originality to the appearance and functionality of the blog simply by browsing through different themes and choose one that best suits your company’s overall tone and purpose.…

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