Need to Know - Small Business Technology: January 30, 2012

6 Tips for Improving Twitter Link Click Through Rate - I'm going to try the tip on placing links 25% 0of the way into a Tweet. Intrigued? Click and read!

The “Four Horsemen” of an SEO apocalypse in 2012 - The four are mobile devices, analytics, personalization & content. Click through to learn about their "apocalyptic" impact on SEO.

Google Analytics Tutorial: 8 Valuable Tips To Hustle With Data! - A well written tutorial on advanced tips using Google Analytics by the co-founder of Google.

Why are America’s fastest-growing companies killing their blogs? - I read it, but I just don't believe it yet. I may have to ponder this a bit and read it again later. You?

Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong - Mind blowing! Take notes after class, study all over the place, and  don't focus on just one skill at a time.

Kendo UI Mobile (Beta) - Very cool tool to develop applications or web sites once for all the major mobile phone platforms. I'm gonna download this and play. This tool could open app development to the masses.

Need to Know - Small Business Technology: January 26, 2012

Online Marketing in Ecommerce 2012: Survey and Case Study Result -

E-retailers improve site navigation -

Too Much SEO Can Harm an Ecommerce Business -

5 Rockstar Landing Pages that Deserve a High-Five (or do they?) -

8 Crazy Things IBM Scientists Have Learned Studying Twitter -

50 new tech tools you should know about -

Need to Know - Small Business Technology: January 9, 2012

Half of adult cell phone owners have apps on their phones: Part IV. What types of apps are adults downloading? - Figure 10 from a Pew research report showing the nine categories of apps sorted from highest use to lowest. Most used: news and sports updates. Least used: health.

U R What U Tweet: 5 Steps To A Better Personal Brand - Fast Company article with five general steps to improve your personal brand. First step is have a good personal homepage, which most social media users lack. Click through for the next four steps.

Google+ Adds Multiple Administrator Capability - Really important information for those setting up new Google+ business pages. Always a good idea to have 2 or more administrators for critical infrastructure. Practical eCommerce provides step-by-step instructions.

USB 3.0 Is Coming to Smartphones and Tablets - Why is this important? How about increasing download speeds by 15:2 and also increasing the recharge rate. Watch for microUSB ports on new devices later in 2012.

China’s ‘cyberarmy’ could number half billion - Here's a scary thought:  "... every Chinese is a potential cyberwarrior  ..." How well do you think your business, state, or country would fare against 500 million simulateous hackers? My thoughts exactly.

Mega Collection Of Cheatsheets for Designers and Developers - Probably the greatest collection of cheatsheets. Has printable cheatsheets for everything from simple HTML and CSS to operating systems to programming languages. I'd book mark this page at a minimum.

Hacking Siri for Learning - A request for examples of using Siri for learning. The article does mention one cool Siri hack involving controlling a home thermostat. Can't wait to see what the Army of Davids comes up with as more and more folks push Siri's software. Its only a matter of time.

Need to Know - Small Business Technology: January 5, 2012

Using Social Buttons to Enhance Search Engine Optimization -  Good article from Practical eCommerce with advice on where to position the "Big 3" social media buttons for maximum optimization and conversions.

How to Create a Customer Focus Group Using Google+ - Yes! Because of  the nature of Google+ circles, you could run an online focus group. Gotta love crowdsourced ideas. Way ta' think crowd!

6 Mobile Website Design Hints for an Optimized User Experience - We concur with Garth's six hints. How did we miss the obvious? Yes, the mobile homepage needs a conversion! (slaps forehead...)

Why Twitter’s “verified account” failure matters - Don't know how I missed this in the twittersphere. Article is a good case study explaining how Twitter verified accounts work (or didn't work).

20 Must-Do Business Boosters for 2012 - OK, the list is not technology heavy, but any business doing all 20 will have a much better year. Glad to see #20 made the cut.

7 Things Highly Productive People Do - So, if I'm already doing all 7, why don't I feel highly productive? I probably need to work on #4 as I tend to ignore email more than the recommended schedule.

Need to Know - Small Business Technology: January 3, 2012

6 Ways To Dramatically Boost Your Landing Page Conversion Rate - The actual 6 Ways are in a free (no email address required) downloadable PDF. Well written guide that I would recommend professionally to clients. Download a copy now for yourself!

6 Tech Trends to Watch in 2012 - Want to know what technical "ships" are just offshore and about to land? This is the kind of article that makes me money and keeps me gainfully employed by telling me what I should be learning. Our favorite 2012 trend is #5 - Bring your own device (BYOD).

Drivers submit a photo, auto shops bid on their car repair - Really neat app that hopefully will lead to lower costs for repairs and eventually auto insurance. Hope this goes viral and has a national impact.

Free mobile internet in exchange for participation in local offers - This is clever. Who doesn't like free? Unfortunately there are no free lunches. Someone has to pay.

5 Steps To Measure The ROI Of Digital Media Channels - Fairly academic article describing the basic steps to aggregate your stats into a single system for analyzing ROI. Light on details and doesn't recommend the final single repository. Read for the underlying concept and not step-by-step instructions.

Need to Know - Small Business Technology: December 30, 2011

5 Totally SWAG Social Media Predictions for 2012 - I think the first 4 of these predictions are spot on. We'll have to see if the demise of Klout occurs. We are also one of the early adopters that have disconnected our profile from Klout.

12 Sites for Ebook Publishing - This a short, but good review of places you can publish your PDFs and eBooks. While we knew of the top four, we had missed some other key distribution channels. Take a moment and see how many of the 12 you are familiar with yourself.

How to Use Content to Increase Your Sales - A seven-minute video condensing a successful content strategy used by Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion.  The best takeway is likely to "blog about the problems customers have with what you sell."

GutCheckit Levels Market Research Playing Field for Small Businesses - New cloud service offers small businesses ability to interview potential product buyers and services users for $40 per interview. The first clone to offer a similar service for $10 per interview will win this niche.

This Is Why Your Website Is Slow - Ghostery released its annual list of things that are currently bringing websites to a crawl. Likely nothing on this list is on your site unless you host at GoDaddy.com. In which case you might consider changing your analytics to Google Analytics.

How to interview a designer with the perfect design exercise - This is likely of more interest to me than you, but its always good to learn about solutions used by others.

In retail stores, research tool uses Kinect to track shoppers’ behavior - Very short 1:14 minute video showing a novel use for the Microsoft Kinect situational controller for xBox game sets. Spooky to imagine these systems everywhere one shops. Best demo music we've ever heard. The music also pauses when the customers pause. Did we mention is just a little over a minute?

How the Service Industry Can Use the Web For Leads and Sales - Much needed information on an often neglected web segment. Includes an embedded slide show at the bottom.

10 careers that will be hot in 2012 - No real surprises here, except discount stores will have an increasing need for managers. Who knew?

Search Engine Ranking: Basic SEO for Small Business

Amazingly, it's 2010, a tenth of the way into the 21st Century, and many small businesses are not ranking well in search engines. Due to having older Web 1.0 websites or poorly designed Web 2.0 sites, these businesses with poor search engine ranking are receiving fewer visitors and thus fewer sales than they should be receiving.

What's the problem? Fundamentals, or rather the lack of fundamentals.

In sports, those atheletes that excel and become Olympians are those that master the fundamentals of their sport. So too, businesses that master the fundamentals of search engine ranking are those that succeed and grow.

What are the fundamentals of search engine ranking?

The core of successful search engine ranking is keyword selection. Research and select three and four word phrases that potential customers are actively searching for. Google's AdWords Keyword Tool is one method for developing a list of phrases actively being searched.

Assign each web page a particular search phrase being searched by over 1,000 people, if possible.  Then tune that page for the selected phrase. Your pages ranking will improve.

Consider renaming pages from the nearly useless "aboutus.htm" to a more beneficial "about-search phrase goes here.htm". Having a keyword or two in the page name is a plus for a good  search engine ranking.

Check your page titles by looking in the blue bar at the top of your browser.  What's up there now? Its not an accident that "Timothy Lee AR" is at the top of your screen. That's deliberate. One of my marketing goals is to own most, if not all, of the ten first page search engine results for "Timothy Lee AR" on Google, Bing, and other search engines. (Check in a few months and see how well I did.) You can do this too by changing your page titles to start with your targeted key words.

Check your meta tags. While Google does not score meta tags for your search engine ranking, Google may use your description meta tag for your search engine listing. Customers don't visit all the search engine results, but select those that more closely describe the sought information. A good description increases click-throughs. Customers actually have to click and visit to generate sales or sales leads.

Use your targeted search engine phrase several times in your first paragraph and throughout the page text. You should aim for about 200 words of text on every page with a saturation of about 3-5% for the targeted search phrase. Many shopping carts lack adequate descriptions for good search engine ranking. By the way, have you figured out what search phrase this page is tuned for besides "Timothy Lee AR". If you answered "search engine ranking," you are correct.

Finally, Arkansas small businesses should request a FREE search engine optimization report from their nearby center of the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center.

Computer Training: Basic HTML - Design Your Own Webpage

Here are some resources and notes for those that attended the Arkansas SBTDC's computer training seminar. Those unable to get a seat in the sold out program might also find these resources useful as well.

Software

KompoZer is a FREE complete web authoring system. KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.

HTML Kit is a full-featured editor for HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and other text files. This is what Timothy uses day in and day out. Its FREE too.

Templates

One of the biggest time and money savers for small business websites is the availability of free and low-cost HTML templates. Find one you can live with. Change the name and contact information. Swap a logo and maybe a photo or two. Add some text. Then, get your site up and running the same day.

Simple, easy to modify templates include:

Free business web template #17

Free HTML Bleu Red and Brown Business Template

Hosting

Resist the urge to register a domain name right away. Instead, select a hosting package. You can register your domain name while purchasing your hosting package. Most hosting packages include a FREE domain name. Why pay twice? 

Get a full featured hosting package that offers more than you will ever need. Consider one of the larger Internet buffets that offer all-you-can-eat services. Among these are:

Bluehost.com - Timothy has used Bluehost for several projects.

Hostgator.com - Timothy runs several large portals on a Hostgator account. Consider the Baby Gator plan.

Siteground.com - Recommended for business needing an online customer contact database. Siteground specializes in hosting SugarCRM.

Content Management Systems

A content management system, or CMS, reduces the need to know very much HTML. You can build a sophisticated, full featured website quickly and easily add content and new features.

Service businesses and sales lead generators should consider installing WordPress as your CMS. Its widely used and there are lots of add ons. WordPress is included with the above Internet buffet hosts and installs with a few clicks of the mouse. Nothing to download and install.

Retailers and others selling online should consider installing Zen Cart as a CMS. Zen Cart is also  included with the above Internet buffet hosts and it too installs with a few clicks of the mouse. While the above Internet buffets also offer several other shopping arts as well, keep in  mind that when selling to fellow Arkansas, you must collect city and county sales tax based on the delivery destination. Arkansas has 75 counties and over 200 cities with sales taxes. How are you going to keep track and remit accurate taxes monthly. A solution already exists for Zen Cart, not so the others.

Final Thoughts

Get your site up and going quickly. Don't agonize too much over initial content. It takes 2-4 months to get a new site up and buzzing with visitors. You'll have time for upgrades. Using a CMS like WordPress or Zen Cart makes upgrades fast and easy.

Once your site is up, request a free Search Engine Optimization (SEO) report from the Arkansas SBTDC. A business consultant will examine you site and compare it to "perfect page" criteria and send you a detailed report on what needs to be "fixed" to have an optimum site. If you're paying some one to do the work, request an SEO report when the final draft site is accessible. No sense in paying the designer a second time for work that should have been done right in the beginning.

Best wishes for success...