SB2 is a local group of Small Business owners and employees that get together once a month to talk about relevant topics.  The topics are determined by the group and the speakers are picked by the steering committee.  Please consider attending one of these events, they are great fun, very informative, and are becoming the source of small business education in North Central Massachusetts.

View the PDF file here: Free Small Business Seminar

If you are not using an online newsletter to drive website traffic and possibly sales, then you really need to look at your overall marketing. Your website is not the “Field of Dreams”, people are not just going to show up because you decided to build it. You need to market your company in a cost effective way and drive people to your website. The best, and most efficient way to do this is by sending regular email newsletters. I have mentioned this before at seminars that I give and I see peoples eyes open up really wide. When I tell people about the traffic we get to our website after we send a newsletter, they seem surprised. Well certainly, I can understand how people who are not all that familiar with websites and web tracking can be surprised. But having done this time and time again, I am very successful at it and I share my thoughts and Ideas with other business owners (especially here in the Boston Mass area) about how they can do it too.

One common complaint is that the company doesn’t sell a product online. NOT TRUE. You may not transact business online, like take a credit card number, however, your website is ALWAYS SELLING your companies services. Your site is your 24 hour full time employee that is always working for you and you need to feed your site some traffic.

I would be happy to share with you my secrets to getting more spikes in your website traffic. Just call me. But start with this one tip. Schedule some time in your calendar over the next 4 weeks. Schedule 1 hour for that entire time. Meaning you have 4 weeks to have a 1 hour meeting with yourself. In that 1 hour meeting, figure out what you want to tell someone, and don’t copy the text from your website. You need to really dig deep. Share some insight, make the information valuable. During this self meeting, create a list of items that you want to share with the public. This bulleted list is the start of your email campaign. Now, to ensure success, you need to have 12 items on this list. Dig Deep, you can find them. If you struggle to find the 12 items, then use Google to find similar companies and figure out what they are talking about on their website. List those items. Once you have the list, you can now begin to determine what your text should be for each item and you can now begin to focus on the details of each newsletter item.

Remember, you can always call me for some advice. I can be reached at 978-632-5300 x111.
When you do call, be sure to tell me that you read this article.
Matt Ward

Did you ever wonder how they get street view images? For those of you who don’t know, you can browse google maps and zoom in all the way to street level. If they have photographed the street, then you can move down the street by clicking arrows and you can see the businesses, cars, home and people on both sides of the street. It’s rather cool stuff. But have you ever seen this car driving around your neighborhood?

It’s about time someone take notice that major people in society believe and thrive in the Internet. President Obama is making the internet a clear part of his presidency. Since he has taken office in January, he has stated that there should be transparency in government and he will lead that charge.

Whether you agree with him or not on how transparent things are, he certainly is sending a clear and concise message that he will be using the internet to speak to the citizens of the US. He just recently release a website… www.recovery.gov that will highlight how the government is going to spend the American Recovery and Reinvestment ACT money. He also created a Whitehouse Youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehouse)….[pause for a moment.... ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THE PRESIDENT IS USING YOUTUBE.....ok back to reality]

I am still very intrigued by the fact that the President of the United States has embraced the internet. This technology continues to drive our economy in many ways. Just think about how your life or business would be different without the internet. I for one can tell you that I have been employed or owned and internet related business since 1997. While that is not a great length of time, just remember that in 1997, we were paying for internet by the minute with AOL. (Remember those days?).

For those of you who aren’t into all the social networking, Twitter might not mean much to you. However Twitter is the latest craze in social networking. President Obama also has a Twitter account here: http://twitter.com/BarackObama. I find this fascinating. Now I understand that perhaps it may not be the President twittering, or blogging, however he is embracing technology and gathering people around his message. Just imagine if you did that as a business owner!

I am certain by now you have heard the stories about the President’s reluctance to give up his Blackberry. Congratulations Mr. President. While I don’t agree with all your ideas, I am so thankful that you are embracing, encouraging, and endorsing the Internet. As a business owner that has a great deal at stake with the Internet, I am even more optimistic now that you are in charge!

Almost every American today watches the news, and news reports. It is hard to avoid them. The nation as a whole, mourns the loss of our soldiers over seas. The loss of 2 Massachusetts soldiers recently, Army Sgt. Kyle J. Harrington of Swansea and Army Pfc. Jonathan R. Roberge of Leominster, affected Central Mass Web design greatly. Family members of both soldiers are employed by Central Mass Web Design, because of this Central Mass Web Design has established a new program to honor fallen United States soldiers.

With the release of www.jonathanroberge.com, we have established a program to give back to those that sacrificed so much for our country. Matt Ward and Central Mass Web Design employees will be donating websites and hosting to the families of fallen soldiers.

When trying to write a blog posting for the company you work for, you try and keep personal feelings out of it, unless you are the company owner. You must remain unbiased and unemotional. I am going to break those rules in this case. I feel it would be an injustice to Matt Ward and the employees of CMWD if I left this blog posting unemotional and just a news alert.

I recently spoke to Matt Ward about the new website we produced for the family of Pfc. Jonathan Roberge. In this conversation Matt Ward explained that a local newspaper asked about putting a small acknowledgment to Central Mass Web Design in one of the articles about the new website and program. Matt Ward declined. He explained that he, and CMWD, were not doing this for recognition. We were not doing this to get our name in the paper. We were not doing this for free advertising. We were doing this in honor of the men that have given so much to all of us.

Personally I appreciate what Matt Ward said. I appreciate the fact that Matt Ward, President, of Central Mass Web Design wants no thanks… fanfare… or recognition of this new program. BUT, and yes, I started a sentence with but… to me this is personal.

Sgt. Kyle Harrington, United States ARMY, died in the line of duty in Iraq January 2009. He was my cousin. This is very personal to me, and since I have the ability to blog about it, I am throwing my own rules on blogging out the window.

Heroes come in many shapes and forms. Sgt. Kyle Harrington and Pfc. Jonathan Roberge will always be mine, but so will Matt Ward. Thank you Central Mass Web Design, and thank you Matt Ward for this new program that will allow families to honor their fallen heroes.

Kimberly Veautour
Senior Project Manager
Central Mass Web Design, Inc.

Yes! Yes! and Yes! Blogs use web site content management systems with added functionality such as comments, pictures, and RSS feeds. When you optimize a web site with constantly changing or updated content and that document gets indexed, categorized and ranked by a search engines it adds Search Engine Benefits.

Things to remember when blogging?

1. Categories’ Make sure you use categories to establish themes, and structure your posts in those themes. If you can make it easier for search engines to understand your content, you have a better chance of ranking well.
2. Search Engine Friendly URL’s Make it easy for search engine spiders to find and crawl blog content.
3. New Content – Both readers and search engines demand new content. From a search engine perspective, the more often you add content… the more the blog is searched by search engine spiders, the more you show up in search engine results. New content will also give the impression of a more authoritative web site, and your client will value the ‘expert” advice you share. A very fast way to use a blog is to integrate it directly on the home page of your website as events, news or tips section.

20 quick blog ideas to get you started:

1. Write a tutorial! Give your clients the one up on everyone else.
2. Post about current events that pertain to your business, geographical area, or industry.
3. Review your statistics to see what keywords referred your visitors to your site and post about those.
4. Write a series of posts. (Example: Take on a large but important topic that your clients would value your input and break it down into sections, with multiple posts.)
5. Update old posts with new ideas.
6. Post about frequently asked questions in your industry.
7. Combine some of your best posts from previous blogs into a new series.
8. Invite your readers to a social network you use. (This will also help with your networking.)
9. Introduce a new industry trend, and become the expert in that area to your clients.
10. Celebrate your achievements.
11. Blog an event.
12. Write a review.
13. Write a case study.
14. Write your biography.
15. Share the newest and greatest thing you found on the web.
16. Write a glossary of terms used in your industry.
17. Do a slide show that explains a new idea or technique.
18. Take ideas from another industry, and explain how it would work in yours.
19. Read other blogs to see what’s new and hot!
20. Write a blog on blogging. Use it to list new blog ideas for your clients

I hope this helps you to get started blogging! Remember your website gives back to you, the effort you put into it.

-Kimberly Veautour

Our Partnership with e-onlinedata allows us some really unique opportunities to assist our clients with taking orders over the web, and now e-onlindata has an iPhone Virtual Terminal available.

The iPhone Virtual Terminal is perfect for any business that needs to process payments on the go! Compatible with iPhone 3G or iPod Touch, The iPhone Virtual Terminal is designed to process credit cards securely with an e-onlinedata merchant account and Authorize.net payment gateway over the 3G or WiFi Network. The iPhone Virtual terminal integrates with any existing e-onlinedata e-commerce merchant account, giving our customers the freedom to process online, or on the go.

When you spend over 3 Million dollars on a 60 second ad, you had better do it right, and Godaddy did it AGAIN. Last year they set records for driving traffic to their website on the day of and the day after the 2008 Superbowl. Just wait for the numbers to come out on this years ads. They ran 2 ads in 2009 and both of the ads were “incomplete”, meaning they mentioned their website to see the remainder of the ad.

Buzz
Godaddy loves creating a buzz and they do just that with their close to the edge commercials built with major suspense. Tomorrow, it’s likely that they will be the talk around the water cooler.

Brand Awareness
If you are going for Brand Awareness, then running and commercial during the Superbowl is the best option for you. It’s the one TV program that Americans actually want to see the commercials. Many companies use this forum to create major brand awareness. Others also use it to sell products and services, but few actually focus on that. Godaddy did just that.

Bob Parsons…..YOU ARE MY HERO! You create a buzz, you drive people to your site, and they buy, it’s no wonder you didn’t go public….it was probably the best move you made. Good Job.

How can you make your business act like Godaddy?
Start by making your ads drive traffic to specific pages on your website then create those pages to communicate, inform, and convert visitors into calls and sales. It’s not rocket science, it just has to be done, and someone has to do it.