Common Mistakes Entepreneurs Make on Their Web Site
On this show, Stephanie Morgan of CID and I discuss some of the common mistakes that business owners make with their web presence. It ranges from design to all kinds of other things such as the search engine optimization they could be taking advantage of to how they design their website and the content they put on their web site. The good news is that many of these mistakes can be corrected very easily. On this show, we discuss some things that you can do today to begin to make a difference in your web site’s effectiveness. The questions and the answers to those questions that we covered include:
Question 1: Why should I have a professional create my website vs using a web builder tool?
Question 2: How does improper navigation or bad site planning affect the effectiveness of a website?
Question 3: How do you capture the information from visitors to your site? And why is this important?
Question 4: What is a website analytic tool? Why do I need it and how often should I check it?
Question 5: What are some of the things I can do to boost my online marketing? (use keywords and research them using a tool… ranked to low- no one will see site, ranked to high – to much competition; social m
Question 6: Video, has become popular these days. Why should I use it and it is it for me? (people see video first, so if a competitor has a video, they will be more likely to be seen first)
There were more, but you have to listen to discover what they are… It’s worth taking a listen to discover them.
7 steps to getting free marketing help, work less hours, and help more people
On this show, I interview Deanna Maio about how small business owners can finally get over that gap between having too much work to do and not quite making enough to hire someone else. This important step can now be successfully completed by the use of interns. We cover on this show how small business owners can use interns to get a lot of the work they need done completed at a price that they can afford. Intern programs are easier to set up than you think and can really save you a lot of time because you don’t have to do the tasks that you aren’t the best at doing. On the show, we covered the answers to the following questions and more. You will need to listen in to get the whole story.:
Question 1: Deanna, I’ve heard you referred to as “The Savvy Strategies Coach” How do you define a Savvy Strategy and why is it important to use them?
Question 2: And what’s this business about Free Marketing Help?
Question 3: What is the most important step to include as you start to get this free help?
Question 4: What are some key elements of the process to getting student help?
Question 5: What are some of the mistakes business owners make in starting their internship programs?
Question 6: Tell us more about what an internship program can offer our business?
She now has a self study program that she is offering small business owners on how to set up their own internship program to get that free powerful support team. To Sign up for this program, Business Owners can sign up and receive the powerful bonuses at:
Free Powerful Support Team:
Online Business Owners and Their Customer Information Liability
This show is about online security and the responsibility of the business owner that they have to their customers and keeping their customers information secure. We will discuss what kind of information the business owner must keep secure and what the penalties are for non-compliance. We will discuss the different kinds of identity theft and the kind of protection services that are available. Peggy Goehringer of Prepaid Legal and I discuss these topics in more detail as we answer the following questions:
What are the 6 different types of identity theft?
What are some proactive steps an individual can take personally to help protect themselves?
How much responsibility do businesses have when it comes to identity theft?
What can business owners do to be proactive instead of reactive?
How do they take your identity
How can we stop the fraud?
Should you change your social security number if you are a victim?
Does law enforcement pay enough attention to identity theft?
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The Power of Building Relationships in Your Business Offline and Online
This show was fantastic. We spoke with Linda Hughes of Entrepreneur Community Online to discuss the power of building relationships in your business, whether you do that online or offline. We focused on why relationships are so important to business owners. During this show, Linda and I discussed the answers to the following questions:
Question 1: What made you choose this topic for our discussion today?
Question 2: Explain what you mean:
Question 3: What about customers, isn’t that the true foundation of a business? Without them, a business can’t go let alone grow.
Question 4: How do you get more customers to even start building a relationship with in the first place?
Question 5: What does target marketing have to do with relationship building?
Question 6: Ok, you know your target market, you know how you want to reach them, now what?
Question 7: What keeps people from being in relationship and/or creating relationship
Question 8: when a person makes a mistake with a relationship and looses respect-is it possible to regain that respect and how?
For those that are local to the Denver Metro area, Linda has created a new Meetup group that supports entrepreneurs in getting the training they need to make their business successful.
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How HB1193 has affected online business owners in and out of Colorado
On this show, Caron Notarmuzi of the Colorado Revenue Department and I discussed how the changes in the law of Colorado affect retailers both inside and outside of Colorado as well as the consumers. We also discussed who has to comply and what are the reasons for complying, and how the new law affects the way consumers and retailers do business in Colorado. Some businesses have been negatively impacted by this new law although from the discussion, there seems to be some confusion as to why some affiliate service providers acted in removing Colorado affiliates. Listen in to the show to find out more. We answered these and more questions:
Question 1: How does HB 2010-1193 affect out-of-state retailers?
Question 2: How does HB 2010-1193 affect businesses physically located in Colorado?
Question 3: What is the effective date?
Question 4: What are the penalties for non-compliance?
Question 5: What should Colorado purchasers do when they have not been charged sales tax by out-of-state retailers?
Question 6: Who is ultimately held responsible for collecting/paying sales/use tax – i.e. vendors/consumers?
Question 11: What was HB-1193 about
Question 12: Are tax classes available to out of state businesses
Question 13: myths: Internet Sales myths
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Twitter Business Power Tips
In this show, Grandma Mary and I discuss some of the business power tips that are essential for business owners to know about when it comes to twitter and how to use twitter most effectively. There are a lot of things that business owners can do wrong when using twitter, and these things can get in the way of being able to actually bring in more business by using twitter. This radio show covers some great tips on being able to use twitter effectively and efficiently. Listen in as we cover the answers to:
Question 1: How do I decide if I should be on Twitter?
Question 2: How much time do I need to spend on Twitter?
Question 3: How to do I find people to follow?
Question 4: How to do I find things to Tweet about?
Question 5: How do I measure my ROI?
Question 6: is there an easy way to find out who didn’t respond to invites so you don’t hit limit on friending
Question 7: How to find the influential people
We cover more as well… Listen in.
For those that want to get more tips and tactics for Twitter, this ebook has it all!
Use Twitter To Grow Your Business
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Free WordPress Plugins That Will Take Your Blog To the Next Level
WordPress is a blogging platform and a content management system that provides an extreme amount of functionality for a very low lead in cost. With some plugins, you can turn your blog into anything from an ecommerce site to a social networking site. There are free solutions as well as solutions that are paid. What is the advantage of the free solution? Well it is free. The free solutions allow the blog owner to get going at a low entry level. The thing with these solutions the support for these plugins can be a bit spotty. (It can for paid versions as well, but that is usually less likely. Look at the reviews for the plugins before investing)
So what are these plugins that will take your blog to the next level? And what exactly is that level?
Membership Site
If you want to turn your blog into a membership site then there are a couple of free plugins that you can use to do that.
1) Members is a free plugin that turns your site into a membership site. Some of the features of this plugin include:
Edit Roles: Edit (and delete) specific roles and each role’s capabilities.
New Roles: Create new roles for use on your site.
Content Permissions: Control what roles have access to specific posts and pages.
Shortcodes: Use to restrict/allow access to content.
Template Tags: Functions to be used within your WordPress theme.
Widgets: A login form and user list widget for use in any widget areas.
Private Blog: Force visitors to log in before viewing your site.
You get a bit more flexibility with user status and content, but as you can see, you would need additional functionality to add payment plans to the site.
s2Member […]
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What You Need to Know about Online Merchant Services
This weeks episode with Maurice Washington of Executive Merchant Services was featured on Stickam. We discussed the whole deal with merchant accounts and how they can affect your online business. Merchant accounts allow online businesses take payments online and can increase their sales by over 300%. As a merchant, there are some things that need to be taken into consideration when applying for and using a merchant account. On this show, Maurice and I discuss the following topics:
Question 1: Why should you get online merchant services?
Question 2: Difference between a merchant services account vs. a PayPal account?
Question 3: Is processing credit cards online secure?
Question 4: What size transaction is too high to process online?
Question 5: How does the money get from that person’s credit card online to your bank account?
Question 6: What is the average turnaround time on getting your money into the account?
Question 7: What is a merchant account
Question 8: Is Good Credit an important requirement?
Question 9: What is a high risk industry?
There are actually another 14 questions that were covered in this show that in include topics on payments and costs…. Listen in below to hear them all including the answers.
Also, Maurice and I will be giving a talk on how to make your website ecommerce enabled. If you are in the Denver area, join the Denver Boulder Business Facebook Group and find out when and where.
Also, check out my WordPress Webinar I’ll be giving on the 28th.
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Marketing to the new Media – iPhones and iPads
Mobile marketing has given businesses a new dimension in marketing their products and services. With the rapid rise in popularity of smartphones like the iPhone, or devices like the iPad, mobile marketing has become more than just making a web site friendly to mobile devices. The field has become wide open, and only those entrepreneurs who venture out first and stake their claim will be the ones who can ride out the wave.
On the show, Jeff Finkelstein of Customer Paradigm and I discussed some important questions regarding the emergence of a new market with the popularity of devices such as the iPhone and the iPad and other smartphones. We covered why it is important to have an app for the iPad as opposed to the iPhone, and what kinds of apps work the best.
Find more info at http://www.customerparadigm.com/
Show Special:
10% off initial Search Engine Optimization Project or 5% off iPad or iPhone app development
Some of the questions we answered on the show were:
Question 1: What’s the big deal about the iPad. Isn’t it just like a laptop?
Question 2: Why build an app for an iPad or iPhone instead of a mobile-optimized website?
Question 3: What are some of the best apps out there for the iPad, and why?
Question 4: Is it easy to make money in the App Store?
Question 5: Are Apps really a way of creating a cordoned off section of the Web, that’s been carefully screened?
Question 6: For authors, how can you get books onto the iPad?
Question 7: How are users balancing privacy of location-based information with benefits of apps knowing where they are?
Listen in to these and others in the included podcast.
Training Notice!
Power Twitter Tips
WordPress Blog Training
Finding Your Target Market
This show B. and Niki covered the importance of finding your target market and the difference between marketing and PR. In these times targeted PR is more important than ever before and putting together a strong PR campaign will really make a difference in the bottom line of your business. For those of you who were lucky to be on the call, you were able to take advantage of 3 hours of free consultation by Niki Lopez of Focus Marketing and PR.
In B’s Bytes, B. covered the different kinds of traffic you can get to your website and how you would need to use different monetization strategies with each type of traffic.
Those listeners are also eligible for a free web site assessment.
In addition, we gave the answers to the following questions:
Question 1: What inspired you to begin your business?
Question 2: What process do you go through to help people identify their target market?
Question 3: Why is identifying your target market so important in today’s world?
Question 4: What changes do you typically see for your clients once they have gone through this process?
Question 5: How does today’s economic situation dictate what you can do with your clients?
Question 6: Why is it still important to market, especially right now?
Question 7: How does Internet marketing fits into today’s marketing strategies.
In B’s Bytes, I talked about the different kinds of traffic and what you can do with that type of traffic, and the different ways to monetize that traffic.
Check out the twitter webinar I’ll be holding with Andrea Vahl on June 24th
