When creating a new website for your business, the layout of the overall site and each visual page is key both in creating an attractive outlook and driving customers to particular points within your site. With an interesting and professional layout, you have ensured a solid foundation on which to develop your website. There are a number of factors to consider in order to optimize the appearance of your site.

The main elements that go into web design are headlines, navigation, images and text. It may sound simple, but the primary point to remember is that your company logo should be clearly displayed at the top of the page and each page within the site should have a bold and informative headline explaining the content underneath. More →

Making and giving presentations are part of any business. You may have to present proposals to clients and customers. You may have to present rules or give training to your employees. No matter what the purpose for your presentation, you will need to know how to use PowerPoint efficiently. Otherwise, you just might not achieve what you are aiming for. Here are some things which you can bear in mind when creating your PowerPoint presentation AND when delivering it as well.

The fewer slides you have, the better. This is a simple rule that has been encouraged for a while now. PowerPoint presentations are supposed to be visual aids. They are not supposed to contain all the information that you want to get across. Single out the main points and put them in the slides.

Naturally, you should also look at the content of the slides. You probably have heard of the idea that the fewer words that you use, the better. Well it is true! Again, choose the most striking words that will help you deliver the key points, and leave the rest to your ORAL delivery.

This brings us to the next important point – pay particular attention to your delivery. Make sure you know what you want to get across ON TOP of what is on the presentation. Find ways to liven up the presentation and engage your audience. LOOK at them, TALK to them. Remember that you are presenting to people, and people need interaction.

If you think that the swine flu pandemic is over and done with, then you should think again! The swine flu, or H1N1, virus is still around and it seems that it continues to be a cause of concern. As a matter of fact, federal officials released a statement on Monday to the effect that small business owners should prepare for the scenario wherein their employees might be affected by the virus.

As we usher in fall, the Department of Homeland Security warns that many more people might contract the virus, and since about half of the workers in the private sector are employed by small businesses, this is a pressing matter. Janet Napolitano, chief of Homeland Security said:

“They play a key role in protecting the health and safety of the country but also their own employees and also helping us limit impact of an H1N1 pandemic on our economy and our country.”

The Department of Homeland Security has released a guidebook with the aim of helping small businesses prevent complications arising from swine flu infections. In addition to this, the guidebook also helps with coming up with contingency plans in case staff members do contract the virus. Some examples include allowing employees to work from home, carrying out operations with leaner staff, and so on.

While there is no indication that the swine flu problem will take a turn for the worse, the CDC is preparing itself for whatever may happen. It is but logical that small business owners do the same.

I am sure that you have been following the moves of the newly elected US President. After all, he made some promises (a lot actually) during his campaign, many of which will affect your business. For small business owners, you might have been a bit iffy as to exactly how his plans would be affecting you.

If news reports are to be believed, then there is hope – a lot of it. Bloomberg recently ran a story about Obama’s plans to boost small businesses in the country. The story says that:

President Barack Obama will spend more than half of the $730 million in government funds set aside to help small businesses to expand federal guarantees and lower lending fees to try to revive the flow of credit, people familiar with the matter said.

Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will announce the $375 million plan tomorrow as part of a strategy to bolster Small Business Administration lending, the people said. The money will come from the $787 billion economic stimulus plan Congress passed last month.

I don’t know about you, but this is looking good. I am sure that many of you have been facing liquidity problems. Big or small, businesses in the United States have definitely been suffering from cash flow problems. With this aid in the horizon, we just might have better things to hope for. What do you think? Will the aid actually materialize? Will we actually feel the effects? I am definitely hoping.

Your business has been on the internet for some years and you’ve suddenly realized customers are not coming back. Why, well maybe your site is getting too much traffic it can’t handle it anymore. That is one of the most common mistakes businesses make, failure to regularly assess their businesses status and strategy over the internet. One simple check would be to go to the web site itself and try to see if your existing design is working for you and similarly for your customers. Ever heard of the suggestions box in your site, it might be overflowing with mail of suggestions of customers your staff may be failing to take account of. As business managers/owners, you need to be on top of things that other people may have overlooked thus ensuring all bases are covered and your business grows with your customers. Remember, as more and more customers try to get into a site, your current set-up may not be enough to handle all the added load so a thorough review and status report of your site traffic and other statistics might be in order.

Too much traffic, consider getting a dedicated hosting service so you get ample resources dedicated to you and your customers all the time. Much is the disdain of customers for sites that fail to load or cannot handle the traffic, for small to medium businesses this can prove to be a killer. Hosting is one of the best ways to save on equipment and other supporting hardware for they are so expensive and costly to maintain you might not be able to handle the costs. That’s why hosting services abound and that’s why you’re earning money, or are you? Better take a look to find out!

Everybody has credit cards and we have those darned banks to blame with their aggressive marketing strategies. Offers here and there, offers everywhere. Just seems you can’t escape plastic nowadays, in the mall, on a business trip or even on vacation. There is always a need for cash and thanks to these small yet terrible plastic cards we get to do a lot with less(carrying cash that is).
They’re not for everyone though, for many a debts have gone wild because of unwise use. Identity thieves also love these compact cash cows they use for their dastardly deeds. For the wise, its a good tool for your business for it allows you to balance the cash flow allowing shuffling of funds with their different cut-off dates. Pissed at your current bank, why not try shifting to another bank, for most offer balance transfers without charge. Just be sure to settle your debts before doing so or risk getting blacklisted by the credit industry.

If you were asked what makes a blog a lot different from the conventional web site, what would your answer be? Off the top of my head, I would probably say something about the opportunity for interaction between blog (business) owner and the reader. Indeed, comments make blogs a whole lot more interesting and real as compared to static web sites.

Keeping this idea in mind, ask yourself how you are making use of commenting to your advantage. Has this concept even crossed your mind? Or maybe you have not really paid that much attention to it. In this post and the next few ones, let us take a deeper look at how you can make the most out of comments in your blog.

The first step to consider would be how you allow commenting. Having readers be able to leave comments is a great thing but this does not mean that you have no control as to the who and what. As you might probably know, spamming is rife online – even when it comes to comments. As such, you might want to employ specific measures as to who can comment and the content of the comment as well.

Just a note, though, balance is the key here. On the one end, you can allow everyone and anyone to comment without moderation. On the other end, you can require readers to sign up and then log in every time they want to leave a comment. In my mind, these two extremes may not be the best solutions. It would be better to take a moderate stance and make it easy for real readers to leave comments but make sure that automated software cannot leave comments.

There are people who automatically blame others for their failure. These people find someone else to blame and in fact, blame everyone else – except for themselves. My parents raised me wrongly, my classmates bullied me, my professors duped me into believing something false, my colleagues ganged up on me and so on. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who always take the blame upon themselves. I did it. This happened because of me. I didn’t do enough that’s why I failed. As you can see, both points of view are quite extreme and probably not healthy.

Yet what Chris Sandberg shares in his blog kind of struck a chord within me. He shares:

A few weeks ago at Russell Brunson’s 12 Month Internet Millionaire Workshop, one of the speakers said something to the effect of: if you are not successful it’s all your fault. This implies that you have control over your future, meaning that if you really are not successful you have the control to change it. Success doesn’t happen immediately but by taking control of your life and taking the actions necessary to become successful, you will become successful.

I get his point – we may not have control over all the circumstances that we encounter but we do have control regarding how we behave and how we react. Seen from this point of view, then it should follow that we can all be successful – it just depends on how we handle the situation. What are your thoughts on this?

What is one big reason that customers ignore some print ads, flyers, brochures, and similar media from businesses? I would say that the idea that these materials are merely pushing the company’s agenda on me – that they want to sell me their product or service. Sometimes, customers just get tired of it all.

That is why you should take on a different approach in your business blog. Do not think of your blog as merely another way to sell your company to your readers. More than that, I believe that a business blog should be a venue for people to interact and share their enthusiasm about a certain thing – in this case, the field of expertise of the company.

For example, your business offers spa services. Aside from promoting your massages, scrubs, and other treatments, why not treat your blog as a place where you can have interactive exchanges with other people who are passionate about health and wellbeing in general?

What would happen then is that not all of your posts will be news about your latest promotions. Nor will they be about your latest products. Instead, you can sprinkle your business blog with discussion topics like “What is your health and beauty regimen?” Or perhaps “What do you like best about spas?”

I am sure you can come up with more creative topics than these. Try taking this approach in your blogs and you will see how your readers will interact with you more.

John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing has an interesting post on the real competition that small businesses face – perception:

One of the most critical marketing chores your small business has is to find something that makes you unique, something that a market values, something that no one else offers and make it your defining marketing element.

He has a great point. Making your business stand out from all of the rest is the most important thing you can do. That’s why a business with a wonderful product can fail, while a business with an inferior product and a great marketing angle can do well.