Does your business really need a website? These days, you can get an online presence with a few clicks on any social media platform. In minutes, you could set up a Facebook business page, a YouTube channel, or a free blog! If you can bring your business online so fast and easy — and for free — do you really need to bother with a website too? Ownership and Control of Your Online Presence A while back, I read about an author who had created a Facebook page and spent months promoting her forthcoming books and collecting data about her prospective readers. She built her business on that page, an ..read more

Tips for getting a logo. We all know what to expect from the golden arches of the McDonald’s logo, the active swoosh of the Nike logo, or the simple yet refined Apple logo. These logos tell us what we’re getting (food, shoes, electronics), but more importantly, they convey each brand’s personality and philosophy. Your logo is a key element of branding for your small business. As you establish your business brand, a quality logo will help make your business memorable and recognizable. What Makes a Good Logo Design? So, what makes a good logo? Conduct a Google image search for “famous logos” a ..read more

Building brand recognition online. A picture is worth a thousand words. Branding and marketing professionals understand the power of image. Think about the Apple logo, the Nike swoosh, and Starbuck’s emblem. These symbols are burned into our minds, and they immediately prompt brand recognition as well as the feelings and attitudes we hold individually or collectively toward the companies and products that they represent. We’re used to seeing logos and image-based branding on business cards, television and print ads, and product packaging. However, there is no medium more powerful for propell ..read more

Tips for business blogging. When you’re business blogging, you need all the skills that every other blogger uses to establish a successful blog, plus you need a strategy to promote your business. It’s easy to get caught up in blogging and forget about the business goals of your blog. Many blogs go off on tangents. Bloggers spend too much time on blogging tools and checking traffic statistics. They over-promote on social media. The business side of things can get lost in the fray. Conversely, if you get too caught up in the business end of things, you might find yourself skimping on some very ..read more

Interested in adding content to your own WordPress website? WordPress is technically called a content management system, but it’s best understood as website software. You use Microsoft Word to make documents. We use WordPress to make websites. WordPress is a flexible and agile platform with tons of benefits for small business websites. Because it’s open source, there are tons of add-ons (free and premium) that can enhance the features, functionality, and design of any WordPress website. It’s widely used, which means there is an abundance of help available, from WordPress designers and develo ..read more

Using analytics to assess and target your website’s audience. Who’s coming to your website? Are you drawing the audience you want? How can you use analytics to understand your visitors, target the right audience for your offerings, and grow your business? We all want to bring traffic to our websites and customers to our businesses. But many small business owners focus on getting large numbers of visitors when the real focus should be on getting the right visitors — visitors with the potential to become customers. If you’ve already established a website and are collecting analytics data, you ..read more