Beginner Tips for SEO

Have a look at the below videoclip to learn how your Web site will come out at the top of the search engines!

Making Money Takes Practice

Making money takes practice, just like playing the piano takes practice. No one expects anyone to be any good at the piano unless they’ve put in lots practice.
Same with making money. The more you practice the better you get. Eventually making money is as easy for you as piano is for someone who’s been playing for 10 years.

Brainstorm tips

Everyone experiences patches in life where they just cannot think straight, they can’t come up with any new ideas and they are facing a deadline. What to do? You need to do your work, you have to turn in something! Below are some tips I recently found on Toilet Paper Entrepreneur that are sure to help you brainstorm in a pinch:

Ideas Go ‘out Of This World’. How to Brainstorm:

I encourage my people to get creative, think wildly, shoot for the moon. When we allow the craziest, most ‘far-out’ ideas to make the board (the white board), we allow limitless in all our thinking. This can result in the wackiest ideas actually being what we aspire to because we allowed ourselves freedom to really explore possibilities beyond reason. Then, the award goes to the most ‘far-out’ idea. People love to be recognized for their contributions and they get to be the hero for the day!

1. Never settle for the first idea on solving a problem that comes to your mind. There’s always going to be a second right answer with everything. Ask yourself 5 questions about the problem that determine why it is a problem to begin with and often times you will find your solution within those 5 questions.


2. Look to the outside of the situation at hand. Ask someone who is in a completely different business industry about the situation. This gives an outsider’s point of view. Often times we can’t find the answers to things or new ideas because we are too involved to begin with and can’t see clearly.


3. Try performing a “brain dump”. The human brain can only contain so many ideas and thoughts at once before overloading and forgetting some to make more room. Get yourself a journal and just start writing down (or type out on the computer) all of your current ideas without editing them, this will make room for a fresh start.

Becoming A Better Writer

Everyone wants to be better at writing in business, as this is a big part of how you connect with your clients and bring in new clients by grabbing their attention to your writing. But how do you go from an ok writer to a great writer? First and foremost remember that writing is a way to become a better writer. It’s that old saying “practice makes perfect”, it applies to writing as well. Below are some other helpful suggestions to help improve your writing. located on Copy Blogger.

Try becoming a blogger. Blogging involves continuous writing on a weekly basis, which ties into the whole “practice makes perfect” idea.

Allow yourself to accept all kinds of criticism that comes your way, teach yourself how to learn from the criticism that you get.

Always edit your work more than once. After you go over it the first time, go over it again maybe even a third time, you’ll be surprised at what you pick up the second and third time.

Get out that dictionary that has been collecting dust and teach yourself a new word everyday and find a way where you can incorporate that new word into your writing.

Always make sure there are no distractions around you when you are writing.

Keep a journal to keep the writing juices flowing.

Hair Salon Of The Future

Realizing that both existing and potential clients might appreciate a chat about a haircut before visiting their stylist, Plan B Salon in Cambridge, Massachusetts launched a new service offering 15-minute video consultations.

Prior to their appointment, customers can get an idea of what their options are or how receptive the stylist is to their requests, without wasting time on a journey to the salon. It also lets clients to weigh various possibilities before going in for a cut.

The consultations are set up over Skype. Customers request a date and time using a form on Plan B’s website, which asks for their Skype call-back name/number. The salon offers appointments all day on Mondays—a smart way to fill up those quieter days—but will book consultations on other days of the week if time is available. The service is free, and clients are charged from USD 50 for a cut, style and finish.

Costing only time, web-video consultations are a relatively easy way for hairdressers to add value to their customers’ experience. If you’re in the beauty business or any other service industry—this is something you could start offering next week.

.

Website Simplifies Travel Planning With Insider Tips

Suzanne has always loved to travel. During those travels she would keep notes on the best places to eat, sleep, and visit, creating the ultimate travel guide. After some urging by some friends and family, that ultimate guide is now available online at Suzanne’s Files.

With the help of a few ‘insiders’, Suzanne is able to keep her files updated regularly. Anyone getting ready to travel should take a look and see for themselves what she has to offer.

Tell us a little about Suzanne’s Files.
I continue to be amazed by the multitude of “lifestyle” content that exists, and disappointed by magazines and newspapers who write glowing editorials of their advertisers’ products and services. Suzanne’s Files cuts through the noise and delivers honest, highly personal and opinionated reviews of the high–end lifestyle to consumers who seek quality.

Living in London and having lived in various spots in the US, Continental Europe, and Latin America, I’ve had the great advantage of experiencing so many places, their cultures, its people—all of which I cherry pick aspects I love and fuse into my own everyday life. As a 19 year old American attending university in Paris in the 1990’s, I have since been “culture blending”… and I began making it a personal hobby to “suss out” and collect high quality, mostly niche finds worldwide on where to go, stay, eat, shop, buy, do and be well serviced to enrich my life and those around me. After university in Paris, I worked in media and entertainment in NYC with Faith Popcorn and CBS until a stint with Winstar in New Media brought me back to Europe.

When was it launched?
June 2006 — We launched online to 1,000 friends and acquantances who then sent it on to friends and colleagues!

What inspired you to create Suzanne’s Files?
I had a mini-obsession with finding the best and leaving te rest… most everyone I knew from my early 20s knew of my files and used to ask me continuosly for where to go, stay, eat, to do, best services, top practitioners, etc. So… I knew there was a ‘need’ – a challenge that discerning people were having a hard time solving.

How often are the ‘files’ updated?
Twice a year all files on the website are checked for detail changes and if they are still in business. We add approximately 10 files per week.

What separates Suzanne’s Files from the competition?
Personal, frank and to the point.

What goals do you hope to accomplish over the next year or so?
The more people that use the website and tell their friends, the faster we grow and can introduce more to our fans and readers.

How often do you travel?
Approximately once per month, sometimes 2xs, seasonally depending.

Are there any places you have yet to visit that you would like to see?
Plenty! Among them and on my radar: Corsica, Jordan, Montana, Shanghai, Scilly Islands, Dolomites, San Sebastian.

Before we end the interview, give me a few reasons why I, and anyone reading this, absolutely must visit your website before we travel.
Well… if we have covered, if we have files relevant to where you’re going, the inside scoop with plenty of frank tips and details will guide you like no other source I know of!

Green Bizs To Make Money

When people talk to me about the green business they’re working on, it will sometimes become apparent as we talk that at least part of the problem they are encountering may not be what they think it is.

Rather than being an issue related to planning, marketing, product development, or greening their operations, the issue is sometimes more fundamental, reflecting an inner struggle they have about making money.

This can reveal itself in discussions of larger businesses that have undertaken efforts to save money by wasting less energy, water, and other resources. “Sure, but they’re just doing it to save money,” the person will say.

Another variation of this often comes out in discussion of using market mechanisms to address climate change, in which case some people say “Businesses got us into this problem – how can they get us out?”

Their thinking reveals a fundamental assumption many people have, that making money and doing the right thing for the environment cannot coexist.

Curiously this assumption reveals itself in people at opposite poles of environmental issues. For some people this assumption is used to support their belief that we cannot solve environmental problems without extracting a ruinous economic toll (more on this one another day).

For others though the conflict is the mirror image of this, that if you are making money you must not be doing the right thing for the planet. Statements like these reveal an internal conflict that shapes their efforts to create a business.

Deep in their mind some of these people are thinking that if they make money, then they’re part of the problem.

Which leads me to make a simple statement. It’s okay for a green business to make money. In fact, it’s more than okay – it’s essential.

Commitment to helping the environment is important, but if your business does not make money will disappear.

.

Penny Pinching Tips For Your Business

photo credit: swimparallel

Most entrepreneurs will tell you that skimping on pennies will add up after a while, and today in this economy…it really pay’s to be a penny pincher to the extreme. The more you save, the more you can bank for when you need it the most during slow times to offset your costs. Below are a few penny pinching ideas obtained from Entrepreneur.com for your business.

Cut some costs when setting up your online store. Going online with your business doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg to get it going.

Spread the word yourself. Yes…fancy advertising helps a great deal, but it is not needed to get the word out about your business. Pass out your own hand made flyers, hang up your own hand made signs and coupon offers.

Buy recycled printer cartridges for your business.

Buy used equipment and look for free software that meet your business needs.

Use independent contractors.

Hire your children for part time work.

If you are near your suppliers, go and pick up your order yourself.

Get at least 3 bid’s on everything before you make your final choice.

What penny pinching ideas can you share?

.

5 Marketing Plan Mistakes

When starting up a business and formulating your marketing plan, it is important that you get it right, otherwise it could cost you time and money in the future.

Below is a list of the top five marketing plan mistakes commonly made :

● Get specific with who you mean to target for your advertising. Make sure you have it all laid out specifically who you want to hear the message.

● Forgetting your current customers. Don’t make the mistake of only focusing on your new customer’s, doing this will make your current clients feel left out and possibly make them go else where.

● Not setting a budget up front. All too often businesses get so excited about advertising that they don’t even set a budget, this can prove to be a very costly and troublesome outcome.

● Thinking that marketing only means advertising. There are many aspects of marketing that you need to remember such as networking, customer support, and market research to name a few.

● Not tracking your results.Usually they say “Yeah we put an ad in the paper, and got a few customers from it”. See the problem with that? How do you know that was the most efficient use of your marketing dollars? How many new customers did you get exactly? How much did they spend? How does this compare to other marketing avenues you explored?

What marketing mistakes have you made in your business that others can learn from?