Search engine optimization – we hear that phrase quite a lot these days. Maybe too much, actually. I have encountered countless business bloggers who believe that the primary reason they set up their blog is to increase their ranking when it comes to search engines. Their rationale is that a business blog (in addition to their web site) will increase their search engine ranking.

This is true – there is not doubt about it. Yet if you focus solely on SEO as your purpose for your business blog, you are surely missing out on so much more!

A business blog is meant for more than increasing your own web site’s search engine rankings. Do not overlook this fact or you are merely wasting your resources.

I have written many posts on the benefits of blogging for your business – all of them apart from SEO. Let me see, we have communicating with your readers, who by the way, are probably your customers as well. Then we have the idea of thought leadership – establishing yourself and your company as an authority in your field. Being able to gain this status is definitely a plus for your company. What else? You can carry out market research through your blog, getting information from your customers – both existing and potential.

I can think of so much more that business blogging has to offer. The point is, do not let yourself be sidetracked by merely one aspect of business blogging. You have the tool, you have the means – make the most out of it!

Remember the biggest excuse that business owners have when it comes to blogging? “I do not have time for it.” This is probably true for many business owners. With everything that they have to tend to at work and at home, they really might have no time to write and maintain their own business blog.

Yet there is a workaround to this problem. Why not create a team of bloggers which can handle the business blog? This can mean that you, the head of the company, can still be part of that team or it can be that you will totally leave the blog to your “team.” I prefer the former set up though.

I believe that if you really want your business blog to help your business, you, being the leader of the company, should be deeply involved in the activity as well. Having other people working with you on the blog means that you won’t have to spend as much time on it, though. It will be a good thing for everyone’s productivity because the work for the blog will be spread between 2 or 3 people. The number of people on your team depends on how often you want to post entries. If you want entries posted everyday, then you might want 2 or 3 people on the team. You might also want to assign a reviewer to ensure the quality and integrity of your posts.

Another benefit of having several people work on your blog is intellectual variety and stimulation. Having different points of view and ideas in the blog will certainly add more flavor to your blog.

Image source: http://thegoldguys.blogspot.com/

As you plan your business, you need to take a look at a lot of things, many of which we discussed in the previous posts. Another thing that you should consider carefully is your business name. If you think that a business name is not that important, then you should think again.

Your business name just might make or break your business. Here are some things to consider when coming up with your business name.

Think long and hard about the suitability of the name. After all, this is the name that potential customers will see when they first encounter your business. More so, this is the name that you will have to stick with for the rest of your venture. As such, make sure that you like the name.

Know the rules. There are laws and regulations governing businesses. Make sure that you know what your state requires and what is not allowed. Having this knowledge will spare you from going through the whole process once again if you, by any chance, end up with a name that is not allowed.

Consider your image. What kinds of customers do you want to attract? Do you want to attract the traditional types? Or maybe you want to deal with the more unconventional types? Choose a business name that will suit the kind of clientele that you are targeting?

These are only some of the things that you might want to take into consideration when coming up with a name for your small business. If you have other tips, why not share them with us?

In your attempt to start your own small business, you might find yourself meeting bumps along the way. Though I am sure that you can handle things in your own way and time, why don’t you consider looking for a mentor? In a sense, the fact that you are reading this post (and you are probably reading other materials as well) means that you are seeking some guidance in your endeavor.

So what is mentoring? Smallbusiness.co.uk has this to say:

Mentoring provides a second opinion, offering constructive feedback from an individual experienced in either running a business or in your specific field of interest. The idea is that their support will advise and encourage you in your role as decision maker for the company. A mentor gives you access to a different perspective on events or issues that arise within your business, offering impartial advice.

You have to realize, however, that having a mentor does not mean that you have someone to do all the work for you.

Your mentor is not someone who will do all the work for you or try to take over. Remember that they are not an employee, but are there to help. Mentoring is not business consultancy in disguise and your mentor will most certainly not be running the business for you. Instead they can share their experience and, with you at the helm, help guide your business to success.

Think of a mentor as a teacher, a guide. That’s it. You consult but you still do the work. So what do you think of getting a mentor?

I have this tendency to do everything “big.” Whenever I start something, I want to do things in the best possible way and I do not think there is anything wrong with that. However, through the years, I have also learned to acknowledge limitations. They do exist, especially for small business start ups. And now, I know that there are certain ways that I can cut costs without necessarily cutting on the grandness of my plans. Let me share some of these tips with you.

Learn to distinguish between necessities and “bling.”
There are certain things that cannot be done without when starting a small business and there are things that can wait. However, there are things that fall in between and sometimes, it can be hard to determine which things are absolutely necessary and which things can be left for later.

You may be thinking that this is a no brainer – it is, in theory. However, I have had many experiences (both hands on and vicarious) wherein business owners fall into the trap of impulsive buying and spending. Before they know it, they have spent an unnecessarily large amount. My suggestion? Get everything in writing. If something is NOT on your list, then do not spend money on it. It can wait.

Utilize every little nook and cranny.
Whatever the nature of your business may be, you are probably going to need a space to call your office or shop. If you are renting, you have to be smart about making the most out of whatever space you can afford. Try to get as small an office as you can and then find ways to make it seem larger. Remember, you do not need a whole floor when a single room will do the job just as well.

In some of my recent posts, I emphasized the point that you should consider how your business will affect your lifestyle. Starting your own business and handling it yourself is very much different from working for another person. Even if you have a management position in a company and you have a lot of responsibility, that is nothing compared to actually owning a business and running it yourself. The responsibility that comes with it is increased a hundredfold.

One way to make it easier for you to efficiently operate your own business and nurture your personal life is to shape your business to conform to your lifestyle right at the outset. This includes taking your personality into consideration. According to Rob Spiegel, your personality actually shapes how you conduct your business:

Launching a company is a very personal act. If your start-up is successful, it succeeds because it takes on the contours of your personality. The personal qualities you develop to get the company off the ground are more important than the experience you gained before launching. Your success depend less on what you know than it does on what you’re willing to try, what unsuccessful habits you’re willing to discard, and what lengths you’re willing to go to in order to learn what it takes to make the enterprise run right. Your business has to reflect the strengths of your personality and abilities.

As such, you should take the time to reflect on how you want to go about starting a business. Do not rush the process. More so, when others tell you how to go about it, you should consider their advice BUT at the same time consider your own input as well.

Common sense, yes?

There are so many ways by which you can market your small business. Perhaps because of this fact, many small business owners tend to overlook one very significant marketing strategy – that is, gaining referrals. In fact, if you ask many small business owners what they do to actively get referrals, they will probably give you a blank look or even scratch their head. If you are thinking along the same lines, I need you to think again and realize that referrals can be one of the most effective ways by which you market your business AND that you need to actively seek them out.

How can you do this? Isn’t providing excellent services or products enough to get you referrals? Theoretically, this is correct. If you provide the best service or product to your customers, then the chances are that they will spread the word among their friends and colleagues about you. Then again, wouldn’t it be better not to simply sit back and take that chance?

One way of actively seeking out referrals is by making it part of your business practice. That is, you voice out your desire for referrals from your customers. For example, you can include a short spiel when conducting your business. At the end of your transaction, you can tell your customer something like this: “Sir/Madam, we are confident that you are going to enjoy our product and that you will get the best experience out of it. As part of your responsibility as our client, we would like to encourage you to provide us with an X number of referrals within X number of months.”

Why is this effective? Because you have given them a guarantee that they will be happy with your service or product. That means you will do what it takes to provide them satisfaction. In the customer’s mind, referrals are nothing compared to that.

I think that the previous post was pretty convincing, wasn’t it? What better motivation than considerably less cost for marketing? Of course, there is always a downside to everything and email marketing is not exempt from this. I am not out to dissuade you from utilizing email for marketing purposes – far from it. I just want to provide an objective point of view as much as possible. So here we go with the potential disadvantages of email marketing.

I have mentioned this before – email can easily become spam. I am sure that you have had your own experiences with spam. You probably dislike spam with a fervor – just like any other individual. However, this topic is not as clear cut as we would like it to be.

What constitutes spam? For some people, spam is basically any unsolicited email. And they take action against this kind of activity. Now, if your emails are unsolicited and sent in bulk – and this would seem to be the route to take for email marketing – you just might find yourself being labeled as a spammer.

This is one complexity that you have to consider when choosing email as your medium for marketing. One way to avoid being labeled as a spammer would be to include a double opt-in method. Wikipedia describes this as “a method which requires a potential recipient to manually confirm their request for information by clicking a unique link and entering a unique code identifier to confirm that the owner of the recipient email address has indeed requested the information. Responsible e-mail marketing and autoresponder companies use this double opt-in method to confirm each request before any information is sent out.”

We’ve established the fact that email can be used for more than the simple day to day needs of corresponding with other people. If you are a business owner, you have probably realized that email can be a very powerful tool for marketing purposes. In this post, let us discuss some of the advantages that using email for marketing can bring you and your business. I have already mentioned the biggest advantage in the previous post – lower costs. What else does email marketing have to offer?

Short delivery time
When you conduct transactions via electronic means, the transaction time is usually instantaneous. Same thing goes with email – once you click the send button, you can expect your message to get to the intended recipients almost instantaneously.

Accessibility
Ask the average person how many times he checks his email. Actually, you do not even have to go that far – ask yourself the same question. I am sure that at the very least, you would say “a few times” a day. If this is the case for majority of your customers – existing and potential – then your emails will gain more exposure and customers will find you to be more accessible.

Automation
Certain actions can be done automatically without human intervention. This is a big advantage of email marketing. If you lessen the time that you (or your workers) spend on the less important things, you can free up their time to work on more urgent needs. Naturally, you see this as an advantage, right?

In the next post, let us look at the disadvantages of email marketing.

Email is a very powerful tool for marketing. This is a fact that is generally accepted by many. What do you know about email and its potential for marketing? Perhaps, if you are like the general public, your idea of email marketing might be limited to mass mailings. Though this is indeed one of the main ways by which you can utilize emails for marketing purposes, it is by no means the only way.

If you want to consider email as a marketing tool, then you should do away with that limited way of thinking. Instead, try to see email and related activities in a broader sense. Here are some relevant points I got from Wikipedia:

• sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,
• sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,
• adding advertisements to e-mails sent by other companies to their customers, and
• sending e-mails over the Internet, as e-mail did and does exist outside the Internet (e.g., network e-mail and FIDO).

As you can see, the medium is the same, the ideas similar, but the results hold even more potential if you consider these points.

How about the advantages and disadvantages of using email for marketing? Naturally, these two concepts have to be considered. One of the biggest advantages of email marketing is that it does not cost as much as other forms of marketing. It could even be virtually free. There is more to it than this, though. Let us take a deeper look at the pros and cons in the next post.