SmallBusinessNewz

Small Business Stories You May Have Missed This Week

As you may or may not know, I spend a lot more time writing for WebProNews than I do SmallBusinessNewz. That's not because I have any less respect for SmallBusinessNewz readers. WebProNews is just our flagship publication, and it requires a lot of my time.

Yahoo Answers Alters Linking Rules

Small business marketers should take note: it's become a little harder to swing by Yahoo Answers and leave a link to your site.  Still, if you make a regular habit of providing information, some new restrictions could wind up working in your favor. Marketers used to leave links all over Yahoo Answers for the sake of search engine optimization.  Then Yahoo Answers started using the nofollow attribute.  This move cut down on spam, making users happier, although it must have frustrated some individuals.

Get Your Customers to "Buy Now."

We talked recently about getting your products in Google shopping searches. You don't have to be a Google Checkout user for this, but if you are a Google Checkout user, Google is now providing a "Buy Now" button that could prove to be a much needed call-to-action for users.

Two Small Business Organizations Dubbed Bogus

Small business owners should know that there might be some intruders (of a sort) in their midst.  The Main Street Alliance and Small Business Majority have been singled out by other small business associations as groups that are more interested in politics than representing real companies.

A "Less Risky" Approach to Starting a Business

Wouldn't it be great to live a risk-free life? It might sound enticing at first but would probably turn out to be pretty boring. The same idea applies to launching a business as well. When starting a business however, most entrepreneurs would prefer to have as little risk as possible.

Report Looks at Email Deliverability Metrics

Deliverability is perhaps the greatest obstacle that email marketers face. Even if you have a good-sized list, and great content, getting the message to the inboxes of everyone on that list can still be a tricky task. Thanks to spammers and email filters set up by both service providers, as well as users (among other factors), deliverability has become more difficult over the years.

Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates May Be Easy To Cut

Many small businesses are really, really close to making a lot more money, according to the results of some new studies.  But the significant problem of shopping cart abandonment has consumers essentially snatching back the cash at the last moment.

FPB Set To Attend Growth Capital Review Workshop

Pretty much everybody accepts that, sooner or later, the economy will return to normal and small businesses will be able to get loans once again.  But the timetable is pretty unclear, and so the Forum of Private Business is still fighting to make sure all of this occurs in the near future.

Twitter-Approved Marketing

Hopefully you're not thinking, "Oh no, not another Twitter article." Frankly, I wouldn't blame you, because we are all certainly bombarded with everything Twitter. But when you're running a small business, it's not really something that should be ignored.

YouTube Readying New Channel Design

Small businesses that have presences on YouTube are going to be subjected to a sort of forced redecoration in the near future.  New channel designs are on the way, and depending on what sort of category you fall into, will take over on either July 15th or July 29th.