Torn on Twitter and Found on Facebook

June 28, 2011

June 28, 2011 –

Social media is an omnipresent part of our business and social lives and gaining in popularity around the world.  Twitter was cited as a method of communication for resistance members during Egypt’s recent change of power.  Facebook is a remarkable method of locating long-lost friends, classmates or family members.  I’ve personally met some wonderful “virtual friends” from around the world who fill a niche that I didn’t know was empty!

From a business perspective, social media provides a great marketing and branding tool, especially for a younger demographic.  Sales or promotions can be advertised instantly on Twitter by simply ‘tweeting’ about it in 140 characters or less.  Homepreneurs has a Twitter page as well of course: @homepreneurs aka www.twitter.com/homepreneurs.  Homepreneurs is not on Facebook yet, but my side business – steppingstonestudios – has its own Facebook page.

I must confess though that I’ve soured somewhat on Twitter and Facebook.  While I recognize and concede their value, potentially serious problems exist:

-        Security: Though I’ve not experienced problems with Twitter, many instances of ‘identity theft’ are documented.  A local sports show host mentioned that he never tweets using his name, yet many tweets exists from an individual posing as him.

Issues with Facebook: My account was ‘hacked’ twice by parties unknown on the west coast.  No obvious damage was done but what did these parties learn?  Further, I’ve concluded that bill collectors use Facebook to establish a ‘relationship train’ that allows for calls to family members in an effort to collect.

-        Privacy: A key problem in today’s world is the issue of privacy and protection of personal information.  News stories are often published about credit databases hacked and personal information released.  Recently, Rep. Anthony Weiner was publicly humiliated when photos of his genitalia shown on Twitter were published.  Facebook is certainly not immune either; its open nature lends itself to embarrassing comments and social gaffes.  Locking Facebook down is no simple task when one has hundreds of ‘friends.’

-        Permanence: Once published on the Internet – social sites included – always on the Internet.  Some server somewhere has that erotic picture or conversation you sent as a joke.  Check on yourself by using Google or Spokeo; you may be shocked at the results.  Personnel managers want to know about a new employee and potential mates about your past activities.  Remember that college frat initiation that was recorded and posted?  On a server hard drive somewhere…

-        Information Overload:  Twitter is especially guilty here.  In the early days of Twitter, I was an active Twit when unemployed.  Now with 15,000 followers, far too many messages to track.   The speed of postings is annoying too; my brain doesn’t work that quickly.  While there are many add-ons such as TweetDeck to help organize and filter tweets, I could care less about Lindsay Lohen’s latest rant.

Which is the lesser evil?  Taking a risk when using Twitter and Facebook or risking loss of sales, branding, and current trends in technology?   My recommendation is to limit personal information, radical opinions, and anything that might bite you in the future.  With this in mind, embrace the power of social media and the benefits it can provide.

By Dion D Shaw

Dion Shaw is the founder and owner of homepreneurs

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4 Work at Home Websites

June 20, 2011

June 20, 2011 -

Wouldn’t working at home be a great idea?  Think of the time and fuel savings, not to mention schedule flexibility.  You are not alone.  Type in “work at home jobs” into Google and over 800 MILLION websites are found.  Many of these are bogus and designed only to make money for the site owner.

Homepreneurs attempts to present legitimate websites for work at home job listings, though we cannot conduct, guarantee or promise thorough research.  Here are 4 websites where we or people we know have found legitimate employment:

- Craigslist.org – selecting your closest locale is the safest way to avoid fake or scam jobs

- Sologig.com – enter “work at home” in the keyword box

- Work at Home Moms – WAHM.com – go to the job tab and type in “work at home” in the keyword box

- Careerbuilder.com – I typed in work at home jobs this evening: Over 21,000 jobs around the US were listed

Local newspapers – often have smaller, local, part-time, and work at home positions.  Remember to please do your research on the companies and positions.  If something sounds too good to be true…

**  Words of caution from Work at Home Moms web site  **

“Be careful out there … you should NEVER have to pay someone to work for them! There shouldn’t be any fees associated with the jobs listed here. Watch out for scams. If an employer asks for money, it’s a red flag. They’re supposed to pay you.”

Compiled by Dion D. Shaw

Dion Shaw is the founder and owner of Homepreneurs

2 Comments | Home Business Ideas, Homepreneurs, Work at Home Jobs | Permalink
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6 Ways to Sell More Online

June 19, 2011

June 19, 2011 -

One of the great sales and growth vehicles for your business is via ecommerce.  Yet, many companies either do not take advantage of Internet commerce or are not maximizing its potential.

Rieva Lesonsky’s suggestions for improving online sales range from SEO (search engine optimization) to changing the appeal of a website.  Her 6 tips are simple and easily done at low to no cost.

We strongly urge all that sell online – homepreneurs or small business or entrepreneurs – to review Ms. Lesonsky’s suggestions and make needed changes to improve online sales and grow your business.

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6 Ways to Sell More Online

By Rieva Lesonsky

Is your company selling products or services online? Good for you. Too many small businesses still aren’t taking advantage of ecommerce opportunities. But are you selling as much as you possibly could be? Probably not. Try these tactics to boost your ecommerce sales:

1. Create an appealing site. When a location is well-designed—whether it’s a store or a website—customers will linger, spending more time and money there. Make sure your site is well organized, easy to navigate and fast to load. If your design, colors or images are outdated, it’s time for a makeover.

2. Provide the right information. Your site should answer all the questions customers might have about your product or service. Pay special attention to product descriptions—online, where customers can’t touch the product, descriptions can make or break the sale. Add or link to reviews if you can to help customers make up their minds. Put your phone number, chat links or other way for customers to contact you with questions prominently on every page.

3. Use the power of SEO. What happens when you type your business name or product name into a search engine? If you’re not on the first page of search results, it’s time for some search engine optimization (SEO). You can hire experts to help with your SEO, or learn the ropes yourself by taking a webinar, seminar or class. Check out your local community college’s offerings or contact SCORE or your local Small Business Development Center.

4. Make an offer. Offering discounts, free shipping or buy-one, get-one-free deals are all good ways to encourage customers to buy more—so you make more. Keep tabs on the incentives your key competitors offer and always try to exceed or at least match them.

5. Spread the word. Use email marketing (newsletters and sales announcements), social media (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) and shopping comparison sites such as Bizrate.com and Google Shopping to let potential customers know about your website and products.

6. Get personal. Keep customers coming back for more with a personal touch. Send customers emails targeted to what they bought in the past and suggesting related items they might like. You can interact and get feedback from customers by sending them email surveys, using survey tools like Zoomerang.com or SurveyMonkey.com, posting surveys on your Facebook page, or asking questions on Twitter. As a small business, personal interaction with customers differentiates you from bigger companies and can give you a marketing edge.

Source: http://www.networksolutions.com/smallbusiness/2011/04/6-ways-sell-more-online/?channelid=P99C425S627N0B142A1D38E0000V100

3 Comments | Homepreneurs | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
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10 Steps From Idea To Business

June 11, 2011

In our research, we sometimes come across articles that are incredibly useful while simply stated.  This one – written by David Ronick- is exactly what a want-to-be entrepreneur needs.  A simple step-by-step plan to take a business from an idea to a working operation.

Even successful startups would find Ronick’s information helpful and valuable.  Were any key steps missed that might cause problems later?  What lessons would I pass along to others interested in similar activities?  Which of the steps went well and what needs additional focus for the next phase?  Excellent advice and lessons from one who has been there and done it very successfully.

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10 Steps From Idea To Business

By David Ronick

Some of the most important things in life don’t come with instruction manuals: homes, spouses, kids and startups are a few. That’s why I created this startup road map. Inspired by the lean approach often favored by today’s tech entrepreneurs, the principles apply to any industry.

1. Come up with an idea

Pick an idea that fits your passions, goals, strengths, resources and tolerance for risk. But keep in mind that your initial idea is just a hypothesis. Don’t fall in love with it just yet.

2. Think through all angles

 Evaluate the opportunity like an investor would—in an objective, thorough, analytical way. Who are the customers and what do they need? How big is the opportunity? Is the timing right? What will it take to execute? Is the payoff worth the risk? What’s the business model? A rough business plan is a great way to make sure you’ve covered all your bases. Here’s a free tool you can use to make sure yours is comprehensive.

3. Get feedback

Find people who know the market, the business model, the competitors and predecessors—people who have been there, done that, and can help you understand what works and what doesn’t in the real world. Also, talk to customers—people in your core target market—and find out what they think about your hypothesis. You’ll learn lots more once you get a product to market, but this initial research will increase your chances of starting out on the right path.

4. Respond to feedback

Make any necessary changes to your business plan, product, and go-to-market strategy. Run some numbers to get a sense of how much capital you’ll need to reach key milestones. Develop an implementation plan with your most important goals over the next few months, and determine whom you need on your team to execute that plan.

5. Build a basic product

When you envision the product or service you ultimately want to offer, it probably has a slick design and a full set of features. Keep that ultimate vision on the back-burner for now. Instead, strip the concept down to the bare minimum offering to address the needs of your core customers. Build that basic product as quickly and inexpensively as you can.

6. Open shop

It’s tempting to wait until your product is “perfect” to start selling it. Instead, realize “perfect is the enemy of good enough.” Until your product is out in the market, you’re flying blind, spending time and money with a limited ability to learn how customers react. Make a core product and get it to market quickly.

7. Test what you’ve created

With products in market, you can figure out how to match your offerings with customer needs. To do that, test elements like pricing, branding, features and customer experiences. Next, find a cost-effective, repeatable way to attract customers by experimenting with marketing messages, promotions, sales pitches and distribution channels. Measure the results and draw conclusions.

8. Make adjustments

Once you learn which aspects of your product and marketing you got wrong, you’ll want to fix them, of course. But hopefully you will have gotten some things right, too, and you’ll want to leave those intact. To do both simultaneously, you’ll tweak or “pivot” your approach.

9. Get ready to grow

Revisit your business plan, and update your product, team, marketing, implementation and finance strategies. Gather resources you’ll need to expand. If you intend to raise capital, this is a good time. Your pitch to investors now sounds something like, “We figured out how to get new customers for $x, and make 3$x from each one. With such and such amount of money, we can grow this big, this fast.” That’s a winning pitch.

10. Stomp on the startup accelerator

With a market-tested plan and resources in place, it’s time to expand. Make sure your team knows and believes in where you’re heading. Check that everyone understands what’s expected and that they have what they need to get it done.

David Ronick is a co-founder of UpStart Bootcamp, which aims to help founders start up smarter.

Read this article at: Inc.com.

Source: http://www.openforum.com/articles/10-steps-from-idea-to-business?extlink=em-openf-SBdaily

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4 Tips for Writing SEO-Friendly Blog Posts

June 9, 2011

June 9, 2011 -

Small businesses and home businesses increasingly rely on website and blogs for publicity, marketing, and product sales.  A successful blog or site needs readers; as many as possible.  Increases in viewership is partly due to valuable content and largely from SEO or Search Engine Optimization methods that help Internet searchers find blog posts and website pages.  A post is considered SEO-friendly if search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo and others can easily find articles based on key words and phrases.

Most potential readers use search engines to find content or information desired; rarely are specific page titles directly entered into a browser.  With this in mind, it is very important to embrace SEO as a tool to gain readership.

Samuel Axon provides tips to assist a blog writer in creating SEO-friendly content.  Axon’s tips will help send more viewers to a site – and by extension – potentially more money from PPC ads, product sales, and advertising.

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4 Tips for Writing SEO-Friendly Blog Posts

By Samuel Axon

In addition to writing for their human readers, web writers and bloggers have to consider the digital web crawlers employed by search engines like Google. Your business can’t skip the task.

Since most would-be readers use search engines to find blog posts, you need to make sure that Google ranks your site highly when those readers search for terms related to your business and the content you’re writing.

You could spend thousands of dollars to have a search marketing firm optimize your business’s blog for search engines, but chances are that you can learn a lot of the fundamentals yourself, saving yourself a lot of money as long as you have the interest and the time. Here’s a basic primer on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your company’s blog.

1. Always Include Search Terms In Your Post’s Title

When Google reads a website to index it, it reads the code directly, not the snazzy presentation that humans see. The way most blogging platforms are built, the headline or title of your blog post is among the first things Google sees, and Google generally assumes the words that appear earliest are the most important. That’s why the title is the most important part of your blog post when it comes to SEO.

Think about who you want to reach with this blog post, and what that person might be searching for when looking for your business’s goods or services, then include critical words from that hypothetical search in the title. The most important terms should appear as quickly as you can reasonably fit them in. Just be careful not to make the title unreadable or awkward to human readers — that SEO effort will have been for naught if the reader is immediately turned off by the content once he or she finds it.

Here’s a pro tip: You’re not likely to win strong ranking for more than one or two search terms at once, so minimalism is a virtue here. Don’t get over-ambitious. Focus on one potential search term, then if you want to rank for a second term, write a separate and unique post specifically with it in mind.

2. Link Important Words to Earlier Blog Posts

Search engines generally assume that a blog post that has been linked to has more authority than one that has not. They also consider exactly what word or phrase linked to the post; a blog post about the iPhone is going to be more likely to show up in Google searches on the subject if another page links the word “iPhone” to the post.

You’ll get the most value from external links from sites that Google or other search engines already consider to be an authority of the subject (if the top blog about iPhones links the word to your post, you’ll get a huge boost), but all incoming links will still pass rank to your page, even those from elsewhere on your site.

So be sure and link important keywords to other pages or previous posts on your blog to gain some credibility and search rank. It will make a big difference. Just don’t overdo it; not only do human readers hate reading blogs so filled with links that they might accidentally click on something, Google may penalize you if you go overboard, too.

3. Hit the Tagging Sweet Spot

Most blogging platforms let you apply tags to your posts. Tags help organize your blog so both humans and search engines can find what they’re looking for. They’re terms like “consulting,” “local” or “technology” that reflect the topics and content of the post.

Google tries to recognize tags and use them to prioritize your site in its search ranking for those terms. The tags are usually links to other pages on your blog (usually a backlog of other posts with the same tag), and like we said earlier, linking search terms to other pages on your site helps too.

So by all means, add pertinent tags to your blog post, but be warned that Google and other search engines are wary of sites that try to game this system. They will penalize you in the search rankings if you use so many tags that the web indexing bots suspect you might be attempting to associate your content with unrelated topics just to score extra traffic.

The method for determining this is arcane, but a good rule of thumb from a pro blogger is that five to 10 appropriate tags are usually right in the sweet spot.

4. Use Google Insights to Find the Best Search Terms

You don’t have to play a guessing game about the best tags or search terms to link or put in your post’s title. Since Google is the most popular search engine, it makes sense to focus your efforts there. Whenever you’re not sure which terms to go with, hit up Google Insights, a web-based tool that compares the popularity of any search terms you want to know about.

For example, if your business is a coffee shop but you’re not sure whether would-be customers are more likely to search for “café” or “coffee shop,” Insights can tell you which one is more popular.

These four tips should get you on your way to having a more SEO-friendly corporate blog. Add your tips for search engine optimization in the comments below.

Source: http://www.openforum.com/articles/4-tips-for-writing-seo-friendly-blog-posts-samuel-axon

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