Every business with a Web site should make Search Engine Optimization — trying to get your site as high up as possible on Google and/or Bing search-results pages — a part of their growth strategy.

At its most basic, “SEO” means finding ways to increase your site’s appearance in web visitors’ search results. This generally means more traffic to your site.

While intense SEO can involve complex site restructuring with a firm (or consultant) that specializes in this area, there are a few simple steps you can take yourself to increase your search engine ranking.

All it requires is a little effort, and some re-thinking of how you approach content on your site.

Read more: http://www.rickberg.com/SEO/10-basic-seo-tips-everyone-should-know 

Check yo’self before you wreck yo’self!

You should also be checking your “local” results.. check google places, yelp, citysearch.com, etc.. any main social media site where people could leave bad/poor reviews.. you need to always be checking what the word on the street is about your business!  Reputation is everything!

Keywords, keywords, keywords!

Link back to your site!

Create a sitemap yo!

Search friendly URLs (especially in WordPress!)

Avoid Flash.. like the plague!

Image descriptions

Content

Social media exposure

Link to others

You have probably heard a lot lately about how every business needs to be doing mobile marketing or “text message marketing”. I’m sure you’ve heard that to be competitive in today’s business environment you need to have a way to communicate with people on their mobile devices.  Email is all but DEAD.. no one reads it, opens it or cares about sorting through all the junk and SPAM in their inbox..  so in a nutshell, using mobile in today’s business environment is no longer optional, but mandatory if you are to remain competitive.

Mobile Marketing/Text Message Marketing is No Longer OPTIONAL!

I’m sure you are aware that virtually every mobile phone does text messaging.  What  you may not know, is that text messages have an open rate of nearly 98%.

You may have even decided that you need to set up a text message marketing campaign for yourself or your business so you can interact with the billions of people with mobile phones about your awesome business.

But there is a problem…

Up until now your experience with text messaging is sending a quick text messages to your family members, a comment to a close friend or maybe even love texts to that special someone. But have you ever sent a text to a list of hundreds of people talking about a new product, in store sales or a mobile coupon?

Most, if not all, people are all familiar with text messaging for personal use, but most people are not aware of how to use texting for business purposes.

I was in the same situation. I wanted to use text message marketing in my local business, but had no idea what to do first or second.  I researched different companies that provided mobile messaging services, but they were extremely expensive and wayyyyy cost prohibitive.  After a lot of trial and error and going through a ton of wasted $$,  I have finally found a company that has developed a step-by-step process for setting up and sending out a profitable text message marketing campaign.

If you’re serious about the mobile revolution, you will get this, with everything you need to  sell text message services like pros.

Their Text Message Marketing system is the perfect choice for small business owners, marketing consultants, direct sales reps or teams that want to develop a texting campaign for themselves or clients.

Check out BizSparx.com

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Awesome tool to help you manage your Twitter, Facebook and Blog Accounts
SocialOomph: socialoomph.com

Socialoomph is a one place for everything relating to Social Media and Twitter follower management. It allows you to schedule your Twitter updates, automate your follower management tasks on Twitter, cleanup your Twitter Direct Message Inbox from junk, and receive email of tweets that contain targeted and relevant keywords. If you want, there are more options for a Pro paid account, allowing you to schedule updates to your Facebook profile and pages, schedule posts for your blogs, find quality Twitter accounts to follow and more. And you can also do a mass delete too.

Sage Advise for Direct Sales Reps:
“He who controls the spice, controls the universe! -Baron Vladimir Harkonnen”

The “spice” I am referring to in this quote is your “prospect and/or customer list”!

If you’ve been around the block a few times and left many different direct sales companies for “greener pastures”, naturally, you’re going to let all your past customers know about your new move. In doing so, you could end up on the business end of a lawsuit for “enticement” from your old company. If you have grabbed your customer list information from your former company, they can rightfully claim that you were using confidential company information that was indeed “owned” by your former company, used explicitly to “harvest” their customers and consultants, and depending on the size of your team, could potentially cost them millions of dollars in lost revenue.  Certainly worth their while to engage in litigation and cause you some real financial pain..

If you look at most direct sales consultant agreements or policy manuals, you’ll see wording that says all customer and consultant lists belong to the company, and that you are granted a license to use that information as long as you are a rep. Customer lists are confidential, and considered an important “trade secret” that could cause financial harm should they fall into the “wrong hands”.

Now, if it sounds like I’m trying to put the fear of God in you, you are right. As a business owner, you need to be aware of all the details of any contracts/agreements that you sign. Make sure you’re reading the fine print in your consultant agreement and policy manual.

You hold ZERO ownership claim to any list that is controlled by your direct sales company. Does that sound fair? After all, you did all the hard work to get all these new customers! Well, I’m here to tell you, it’s not fair.. but there is something you can do about it!

Let me explain: whenever a client or lead visits your company sponsored website and signs up for the company sponsored newsletter, they are part of the company sponsored marketing system and their contact info is essentially owned by the company. It doesn’t matter if the client is a lead from another state or someone from your center of influence. The company owns the lead.

As a business owner, YOU need to have a list that YOU control. You need to create this list, as this will become a key asset to this business and any other you may choose to create later on. Now, as the owner of “Your Biz, Inc.”, you have a right to contact, market and serve anyone on your own list, if you have created it correctly.

Here is how you do it correctly:
It is PARAMOUNT that you have potential clients opt-in to your list BEFORE you recommend your company products or services.  That means acquiring the prospects data through “blind” lead pages or advertising.. at no point, should you have language on any of your initial lead capture pages that say you are affiliated or doing business as a “representative” or “independent distributor” of “Company X”.  In doing so, you can prove beyond the shadow of doubt that they were YOUR leads first. It’s as easy as having them sign up for your monthly newsletter (not the company newsletter, YOUR’S), through your own PERSONAL website or BLOG. When leads opt-in, they have given you written permission to be added to your marketing list.
If you are not technically inclined and need coaching on how to do this, please signup for our newsletter, as we will send out these “How to” tutorials to you. Also, if you don’t currently subscribe to an email or text messaging service to handle your lists and your email and SMS / Text message campaigns, here is the company we use and I highly recommend (They also have a free 4 week trial period so you can check it out for free).

ONE HUGE GIANT WARNING: Do NOT just add people to your list without them fully opting in, or you could be accused of violating CAN-SPAM regulations. Even if you have a list of email addresses that are listed in a funny email you were forwarded from friends and family… DON’T DO IT! Always get their permission. If they’re really your customers, they are usually happy to grant you that permission. If you want to find a way to automate a way to get people’s permission, we can help you with that as well!

Last, but not least: Portability & Flexibility
When you control the list, you determine how and when they are contacted. You can send them ANY message that is in alignment with the purpose of the list. Don’t send knitting tips to a list about financial management. You now assume responsibility for any and all messages going out to your list. It is also your responsibility to keep the list clean. Plus, if you move to a new company, you can take that list with you and avoid any potential pitfalls in the process!

Facebook has truly exploded into the mainstream. What was once a way to connect with friends at Harvard has since gained 200 million users and grown into much bigger shoes. Now it provides a host of business opportunities, offering enormous exposure of small businesses to a wide variety of networks.

Interested yet? If you have ever thought about using social media to boost your sales potential for a home business, here are some ways to make the most of Facebook.

Building Your Profile

Based on site policies, a profile on Facebook must be tied to a human name, so no business can have one. You can use instead the “About Me” section to describe your business to others, as well as add links to your website, blog, Twitter, and any number of other resources.

Building Your Contacts

List To start connecting with people you know, you could search Facebook for individuals or groups, or import your contact database if you have one. Once you find a few friends you can find more by searching through their friends list. Obviously when it comes to business, the one with the most friends wins, so connect with as many potential clients as you can!

Updating Your Status

At the very top of the Facebook homepage is the status box. Every time you update your status, everyone in your contacts can see the update, so use this as an advantage for communicating to your clients. For business purposes, for instance, this is a great place to promote upcoming events or ideas.

Participating in Groups

Try searching the Facebook groups to find ones related to your industry or near you geographically. There are an incredible number and variety of groups available, since every user is entitled to make them. You could even start a group of your own – there’s no cost and the exposure is great. Just be sure that it’s not all promotion, but instead provide content for members to take part in.

Creating Fan Pages

Facebook has provided the ability to create fan pages for businesses, locations and celebrities. To create a fan page, scroll to the bottom of Facebook and click on “Advertising.” Next, click “Pages” at the top and follow the directions. Pages are a lot like profiles, allowing most of the interactive features. Fan pages also receive higher hits for Facebook searches, so you increase the chances of someone finding your page.

You should have a good idea now of how to get started and build your business opportunities through Facebook. It might be difficult to manage while you’re getting started but the experience only enriches with time, so keep at it.

Twitter has taken off like gangbusters in 2008. At the end of 2008 the numbers were telling us that 70% of all twitter users had joined in 2008. Some folks prefer to have a few close friends that follow them. Those folks can pretty much do as they please. But if you are interested in building a brand and using Twitter to promote it, here are some observations and best practices. Just keep in mind that old saying from grade school: “What if everyone did that?”

Rules for tweeting:

* Don’t tweet more than about 4 or 5 times a day.
* Tweet interesting things.
* Share pictures and links with services like twitpic
* Don’t blather on about what you are eating unless you intend to share the recipe
* Don’t put private communications the public twitterstream
* Do NOT publically welcome all your new followers. Imagine reading pages of that.
* It is OK to tweet your blog posts, but it turns people off if that’s all you do.
* Do not join a “monetize your tweets” service such as Magpie, as it will make people dump you.
* Do not brag about how many followers you have. Everyone can already see that.
* Do not ask for more followers. Boring!
* Retweet others frequently when they have tweeted something good.
* Reply to individuals in public if you think others would be interested.
* Do not tweet things like “Gaaaaaaah”. We need context.
* Tweet at least every other day.
* Be happy and positive.
* Be human.

How to treat the people that follow you

* Do not send an auto-direct message thanking each new follower and sending them your pitch. Direct Messages are individual and personal.
* Thank new followers by following back if you haven’t yet.
* Do not direct message followers whom you are not following because they can’t direct message you back
* Recheck profiles of people you are not following from time to time. Some twits just need a little while to get the hang of it.

How to treat the people you follow

* Do not follow people just to get them to follow you back and then unfollow them.
* Do not do mass follows, or you will be considered a spammer even if you never tweet.
* Follow the followers of people you really like.
* Do not exclusively follow “Rock stars.” Follow a few interesting noobs. They’ll love you for it.
* Use a third party twitter client such as tweet deck to manage the twits that you follow into groups.
* Don’t just read your direct messages and replies. Dip into the stream from time to time.
* Give them some time to follow you back.
* Try to follow about as many people as follow you.

So you have made the leap! You have started your own home based business. It might be full time or just a few hours a week but, you have gone where every American wants to go! So you thought it was going to be cool to get out of bed at 8:45 and make coffee and get to your computer at 9:00. Watch T.V. in the background while you worked all day or maybe you were just thinking of getting a afternoon nap in everyday!

It is all good until the 3rd day and reality sets in. You are not getting anything done!! It’s not easy to stay productive and effective when you’re working at home, especially if you have family or a roommate around. Well no need to panic, it is possible to be productive from home you just have to hold yourself accountable.

1. Work Space
Many people don’t have any extra rooms in their house to make into a office, so they are forced to work from the sofa or kitchen table. If you are going to be working from home full time you need to designate one spot to work. If you have to clean a corner out in your bedroom then do so. You must have a place where you can close a door and get away from the busy parts of the house!

2.Tell People You’re Working With Set Hours!
Don’t let your spouse or kids keep bothering you. You must have a place to close the door and tell them you are working when the door is closed. Don’t have your friends over to watch Sports Center or The View in the morning, tell them you can hang out with them after 5:00. Remember your not being mean, this is your business and you have to be able to work!

3.Get A Routine
If you are working full time from home or just a few hours a week get into the routine of doing the same thing day in and day out. That means get up every morning at the same time and start working at the same time every morning. If you start to sleep in on just one or two days you start to develop a new routine. Remember, you have to “employee yourself”! Keep the daily disciplines in place just like you would if you had to drive to a “job”!

4. Make A Schedule
This goes with getting in a routine. Make a schedule and hold yourself to that schedule. It will help you stay on track and you won’t forget to do things..

5. Make A To-Do-List
This is still my favorite productive tip. Keep a piece of paper next to you and when things come up that aren’t on your schedule put them on your to-do-list. You can also put your schedule and your to-do-list on your computer to help you stay organized. A good resource for getting your life and your new business organized is a book by David Allen called “Getting things done” Get it here

6. Stay on Task
Don’t get off your schedule and forget to finish your to-do-list! Its hard to hold yourself accountable when you don’t have a boss looking after you. So when you feel yourself getting off task just stop and ask yourself how bad do I want my business to succeeded Its all up to you, your accountable.

7. No TV.
This one is a no brainier NO TV while you are working! Now I know a few of you reading this are like I work better with the TV on. If you are one of those people have at it. I’m not going to argue with you. Now if you are the other person who knows it is bad for you, just leave it off.

8. Take Breaks
Take Breaks just like you do at work! Take a lunch hour and get out of the house, get your blood flowing. If you try and work non- stop you are going to get burnout! Take your dog for a quick walk, get fresh air, and your Productivity will go up!

9. Getting Dressed
Many people when they work at home think rolling out of bed and walking to work in your PJ’s is the greatest thing in the world. The downside is being in PJ’s most of the day probably won’t help. There’s a formality about getting dressed that prepares us mentally for the job ahead.

10. Business Phone Line
Have a separate line for business only! Now at 1st you might be keeping your cost down, but when you can work it into the budget, it’s a must. I have used Skype for a year now and have a phone number with them. Its only $10/month and my phone is on my computer!

11. When You Are Off, You Are Off
Enjoy your time off! If you stop working at 5:30 and your business phone line rings at 8:30, let your voicemail get it! Don’t let your work take over your home life, it’s a must if you don’t want to get burned-out .

12. E-mails
Don’t spend hours a day looking at your e-mails! Build it in your Schedule and do it one to two times a day. So many people spend half the day reading e-mails for nothing. If it doesn’t build your business, don’t do it!

Remember, it’s all on you!  Employee yourself, look in the mirror at the end of the day and ask yourself, would you have been hired or fired for the effort you put in today if you were working for someone else?