SmallBusinessNewz

Connect your Blog with the Twitterverse

Blogger, the Google-owned blog platform, is suggesting that you use Twitterfeed to tweet your new blog posts. This is a way to expand the readership of your blog, as well as participate on Twitter without actually tweeting things about you life.

5 Steps to Manage Your Brand's Reputation On Your Own

You probably know by now that protecting the reputation of your brand online is critical to success. Word spreads fast on the Internet, and whether or not something is true, it can spiral out of control in a short time. That is why it's important to monitor what people are saying about your product, your business, and their experiences in dealing with you.

Business Blogs Only Work if You Use Them

The New York Times recently ran an interesting piece about how most blogs on the web are abandoned, or at least very rarely updated. The article cites a study performed by blog search engine Technorati, which found that something like 95% of blogs it tracks had not been updated in the past 120 days (from the time the research was collected). Is This a Problem That Plagues Your Business?

Stand Out in Their Feed Readers

If you publish a business blog, chances are you have RSS feeds as well. There is also a good chance that many of your readers pretty much read your content exclusively through these feeds.If these readers are reading your content exclusively through feeds, they are probably doing the same thing with many other blogs and news sources, which is why you have to take some measures to make yours stand out enough to get their attention.

5 Ways to Keep Abreast of What's Happening in Your Niche

Recently, I asked if you were spending enough time learning. While learning about things outside your niche is always encouraged too, you should always be on the look out for new strategies and trends that pertain to yours. This will be incredibly beneficial to you for staying competitive. Following are a few tools you should be using to do just that. 1. StumbleUpon

Are You Spending Enough Time Learning?

 It's an age old saying, but it will never change. Without trying to sound like an NBC public service announcement, the more you know, the more you will be able to use that knowledge in your own life, or in this case, business. A business owner's time is limited, but some of that time should be used for learning. Always. Spend some time (each day if possible) just reading and learning about new tactics, strategies and trends related to your niche.

Top 5 Places to Submit Your Blog

You may have a blog, and that blog may be full of very interesting content, but it's not serving much of a purpose beyond honing your writing skills and allowing you to get something off your chest if other people aren't reading it. As with getting visitors or potential customers in any other aspect of your online business, it is going to take some promotion.

How Are You Promoting Your RSS Feeds?

I have written in the past about different ways that RSS feeds can benefit your business. The Benefits of RSS One way was from the perspective of the subscriber. You can boost your productivity by having all of your favorite blogs and news sources coming right to you in one place. This can be a tremendous time saver, particularly for those who do a lot of reading and research.

Getting Indexed with Feeds

I got a Google Alert of a site that used my name the other day, and was a bit surprised at the source—a self-described "black hat" firm that helps people use aggressive (some might say shady) techniques for search optimization. Happily, they didn't quote me as supporting unethical techniques, but they sell a package that helps you get your pages indexed and they quote me to show that some things they sell really are ethical. I haven't used their software, but the idea of using Web feeds to improve page indexing is a good one.

Marketing Through Contests

Here's some breaking news for you. People like to get free stuff. I've talked before about giving away promotional items for marketing and branding purposes, but now I want to discuss marketing through contests. A contest can be a great way to get people to notice your business, particularly if you are an online business.