Combine Your Blog And Your Main Business Website

I’ve noticed that there are quite a few “website designers”* who are spreading poor advice around, due to their lack of knowledge and/or experience with Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

They tell business owners to start writing a new blog without any sort of strategy in mind. It gets setup separately on some free blogging site like Blogger.com. The author write a few articles, gets frustrated and quits.

Why Add A Blog?

The purpose of publishing a business-related blog is to:

• Continually add new, useful, keyword-rich content to the website to help increase the chances of being found in search engine results.
• Demonstrate your subject matter expertise.
• Allow prospects to get a sense of your personality.

What Are They Doing Wrong?

• Failing to combine the new blog within the domain name of the existing business website.
• Failing to link from blog posts to pages within the business website.
• Failing to write blog posts without a keyword strategy.
• Driving people away from the business website via link to the blog hosted somewhere else.
• Not having any measurement tactics (website analytics) in place to understand where the visitor comes from, how they found the website, and what they look at.

If you have an established business website, absolutely integrated a new blog into it. Any qualified web developer would know how to make it seamlessly make it part of an existing website.

Hope you find this helpful. If you’ve had a bad experience, please add a comment below.
-Roland

*Note: Regarding the term “website designers”, this is a commonly used generic term that applies to someone who builds websites for a living. Their skills might be stronger in either technology or creative design.

The Guy’s Got His Sh*t Together!

What greater compliment could I receive this week than:

“The Guy’s Got His Sh*t Together!”

That cracked me up. It’s not exactly something that can be posted on my Linkedin recommendations. Yet I’m proud and speechless all at the same time.

Come to think of it, while it’s been a rough week professionally, personally, health-wise and weather-wise, it is ending on a positive note:

• I provided business counseling to a few entrepreneurs.
• I taught a class and received all positive feedback.
• Talked to 4 new business prospects this week.
• Got firm project commitments from 2 prospects.
• Put in a couple hours of paid consulting by phone.
• Several dormant projects are moving forward again.

So I have to ask myself, why do I seem to have my [bleep] together?

• All the effort I put into business networking is paying off through the connections I’ve made.
• Public speaking, business counseling, teaching have helped establish me locally as a subject matter expert.
• As hard as it sometimes is, I keep reminding myself to ask for the sale. Sounds easy, but often it isn’t.
• I stay on top of my billings and get invoices out the door on time (mostly).
• I ask myself this question several times a day, “Is what I’m doing right now making me any money?” If the answer is not an acceptable “no,” I refocus immediately.

Maybe I do have my [bleep] together.

What about you?

Social Media For Business: What You Need To Know

Social Media… Do I need it?
What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong?
Is it worth my time?

Those are some of the topics addressed in this presentation to Small Business Owners, Professionals, and Business Startup Entrepreneurs.

Presented by Marketing Consultant Roland Reinhart on March 18, 2011 at Somerset County Business Partnership in Bridgewater, NJ.

 

A Favor Please (It Will Only Take A Minute)

If you found this information valuable, please help me out:

• Leave a positive testimonial in the comments below.
• Share the link to this page with your contacts on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook or Email by using the social sharing links found on this page.

Thanks in advance!

Want A Live Presentation To Your Group?

I’ve presented this topic to a variety of business networking groups, non-profit groups and industry organizations. If you can guarantee at least 30 people attend, I’d be willing to present in person to your group. The presentation and Q&A session usually last an hour. If you have an interesting opportunity, please contact Roland Reinhart to discuss.

Here’s What Attendees Had To Say About This Presentation…

The information is valuable. You don’t have to just take my word for it…

“Thanks for your great presentation this morning—it may well change my life!”
~ Mike A.

“Thanks for an extremely valuable presentation. I learned many valuable tips.”
~ Joanne K.

“Wanted to let you know that I enjoyed this morning’s presentation and was able to take several tips back with me.”
~ Andrew D.

“I enjoyed the presentation Roland. I am looking forward to meeting with you at the SBDC. Thanks.”
~ James R.

Related Articles

• How Objections to Social Media Are Killing Your Business (AmEx OPEN)
• NJ Devils Use Social Media as a Promotional Tool (NY Times)
• 10 Laws of Social Media Marketing (Entrepreneur)
• Study Links Social Media and Stock Price (Marketing VOX)

Access Your Gmail From Desktop Or Mobile Device

With the recent release of the iPhone on the Verizon network, I’ve had quite a few clients contacting me to ask for help to access their business email on their new phone. Many are using Google Apps for Business, the professional version of Gmail, which allows you to use your own domain name with all the Gmail features.

As amazing as these services and devices are, so many people still have difficulty getting them to work correctly. Below are the steps I use for:

• Desktop Email Applications like Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, etc.
• Smartphones like Apple iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc.
• Mobile devices like Apple iPad, iPod Touch, etc.

Try These Steps…

1. Read this important info/steps to first login to your Google email account via web browser to make sure IMAP is enabled before attempting to connect a desktop application or mobile device:
   http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77695
2. Then start with these configuration instructions for your particular desktop application or mobile device:
   http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=12913

Your desktop application/phone/device might have some sort of email setup wizard. But if your having difficulty, try to manually enter these settings:

Incoming Server = imap.gmail.com
Encrypted Connection = “SSL”
Authentication type = “password”
Server Port = 993

Outgoing Server = smtp.gmail.com
If using Apple Mail, put check next to “Secure Socket Layers (SSL)”
If using MS Outlook, make sure Encrypted Connection = “TLS” (Click for example)
Authentication type = password
Server Port = 587

Whenever asked for a user name by the application settings, try entering your entire email address in this format: myname@mydomainname.com

If you have a problem, do a Google search. The answer is usually a few clicks away. If you are totally frustrated, bring your mobile phone/device to the cell phone store you bought it and ask their customer support staff to help you set it up.

You should also take a quick look at these tips:

• Gmail Security Tips
• How to create a strong password

Hope this is helpful to you.
-Roland

10 Mobile Apps To Get Your Business News

Feed Your Mind…

Sometimes, you need to take your mind off of work for awhile and catch up with what’s going on in the world. I recommend these apps:

1. Pulse News Reader iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch / Android
2. BBC News iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch / Android
3. Slate Magazine iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch
4. NY Times iPad
5. USA Today
6. The Wall Street Journal iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch
7. Reuters
8. NPR iPad
9. Entrepreneur Magazine iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch
10. The Onion iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch (Okay, not business, but you need a little fun!)

Live in New Jersey? Get NJ.com Business News with their iPhone/iPod Touch / Android app.

Hope you find this useful. If you have some alternative suggestions, please add to the comments below.
Thank you.
-Roland

How To Reduce Business Email Spam

Junk email (“spam”) is part of your everyday online experience. Email triage is necessary to prioritize your day, but it’s highly unproductive having to sift out obvious and obscure spam messages.

You will never be able to eliminate 100%, but there are some savvy things you can do to significantly reduce it in your business. It just requires an investment of some time and a little money.

• Do not display your email address anywhere on your website. Instead, use a Contact Us form.
  Rationale: Bots crawl websites scraping email addresses and add them to junk mail lists.
• Consider a spam suppression service.
  Rationale: Professional service providers are continuously upgrading their methods to block unwanted emails from known sources.
• Set expectations with your employees and establish a clear Email Use Policy in your workplace.
  Rationale: If you don’t spell out what is/isn’t acceptable, someone will do something careless to compromise your efforts.

Spam Suppression Tools

It gets a bit tricky to make sure the right emails are delivered. You’re often dealing with three applications:

• Your email service provider likely has some basic junk mail detection and filtering.
• Your desktop email application (i.e. MS Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail) has junk detection and filter settings.
• Your spam suppression service (i.e. Postini, SpamArrest).

I’ve used Postini in the past and now for my current business. It seems to work fine. As with any spam suppression too, it takes awhile to build your white list of domains and/or email addresses, as well as the ones you want to block. You’ll be busy the first few weeks. But that’s also a good time to start unsubscribing from lists you generally ignore anyway.

It still requires daily due diligence to make sure nothing important is being held. Each morning I get a summary email of what’s been quarantined for review. If you already pay for Google Apps for Business (formerly Premium) account, Postini is included.

SpamArrest works a bit differently. Initially, every inbound email sent to you gets a verification email to identify the relationship before the original email is delivered. This weeds out the spammers. But doesn’t ensure you’ll get mail from automated newsletters you belong to. So you’ll still have to spend some time uploading your approved contacts and email sources.

I hope you find this helpful. If you’ve had success with a worthy alternative, please add your suggestion to the comments below.
Thank you.
-Roland

Starting A New Business? Then Get Out And Meet People!

I meet a fair number of small business owners and startup entrepreneurs who are very timid about getting out and meeting other business owners. Or maybe they do go to events, but focus on free food and holding up the wall. Then they complain about how difficult it is to get new business.

I can completely understand how intimidating it can be. But your priority must be to succeed. Therefore you have no choice but to suck it up, step out of your comfort zone, and get yourself in gear.

Jump Start Your Networking

• Consider joining a Chamber of Commerce. Find out if they have a free “Let’s Get Acquainted” session to meet and ask questions.
• Contact your local Small Business Development Center. You can get free counseling to help get ideas how to reach your target audience.
• Search Meetup.com for local, free business networking events. It’s a great opportunity for you to get out, practice your 15 second elevator speech, exchange business cards, make contacts.
• Offer to make short, educational presentations to networking groups.

After you’ve done this consistently for awhile, you’ll figure out how to pick and choose what types of events are best to connect with the people you’re looking to meet.

You Found Someone To Talk To. Now What?

• Try to be interesting.
• Portray yourself as a problem solver.
• Be specific about the type of client you’re looking for.
• Always ask the other person who the ideal client is for their business.
• Write notes on the back of the business cards you collect.
• Connect with interesting people on Linkedin shortly thereafter.

You’ve got to do this. This is the easiest way to make connections. You might not get business immediately, but you might get referrals down the road.

Hope you find this useful. If you have some additional suggestions, please add to the comments below. Thank you.
-Roland

10 Mobile Apps To Help You Stay Connected

For business or personal sanity, it’s never been easier to keep tabs on what’s going on in your social circle. Keep up with Friends, “friends,” business connections, etc. with a handful of free and easy to use mobile apps. Here are my favorites…

Favorite Mobile Apps To Stay Connected

1. Google Mobile (Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Reader).
2. Tungle – An easier way to schedule your meetings.
3. Linkedin – Stay active among your professional network.
4. Twitter – Promote yourself to the world.
5. Facebook – Stay connected with your private network.
6. Foursquare – Check in at your favorite destinations.
7. Hootsuite – Publish to multiple social networks at once.
8. Skype – Make free VoIP calls and instant messaging.
9. AIM – Chat with your connections.
10. AroundMe – Location-based app to find out what stores are nearby.

I hear good things about Oovoo for mobile video chat, but I haven’t tried it yet.

Hope you find this useful. If you have some alternative suggestions, please add to the comments below.
Thank you.
-Roland