Entrepreneurs - 5 Things You Must Do Every Day to Build Your Business

If you are an entrepreneur there are a few critical tasks that you need to turn into a daily habit in order for your business to keep moving in a positive direction and to make you money. Read on to find out those key items and how you can add them to your daily routine.

Entrepreneurs have to wear many hats when a business is just starting. Many things need to be delegated to others in order for the business to run smoothly and there are a few things that you must do yourself. If you can create a habit of performing these 5 things every day, some for just a few minutes, then you will see your business grow right alongside your dreams:

1. Plan for the future a few minutes each day. Assume that your product has stopped selling all of a sudden. What direction will you take your company next? What new income stream can you add? This is a time for day dreaming and recording notes in preparation for the future. You don't necessarily have to take action on these items, but you need to think about them daily in order to bring out the golden ideas.

2. Work on your marketing in some aspect every day to get new customers. If your prospective customers don't know about you they won't buy from you. Work on getting your message out every day even if it is just for a few minutes.

3. Work on closing a sale every single day. whether you are doing this on-line, on the phone, through the mail, or face-to-face you need to be selling every day. Without the close of a sale there is no business. This is not something that you can delegate all the way. even if you have a sales force you need to be out there looking for deals.

4. Develop or strengthen your business network. You need to join or create a business network where you can help others and they can help you back. This is a great place to get free customers through referrals and an excellent mentoring opportunity using the mastermind principle.

5. Contact your current customers. Don't ever forget about the people that have already purchased from you. These are your best customers. They already like what you have to sell and they don't cost anything to acquire. Contact your current customers frequently, even if you are just saying hello. They need to know what you have to offer and they need to know you are still breathing. They won't seek you out. You must go to them.

Source: Manta

Where in the World Are Your Twitter Followers? TweepsMap Knows

Knowing where your Twitter followers are located can not only feed your curiosity, but it can also help you measure the success of your social campaigns. To do this, TweepsMap links to your Twitter account, analyzes your followers and provides a map or chart that shows where they’re located by country, state or city.

Launched in October, the tool helps Twitter users learn if their campaign is successful in a targeted region. For example, if your Twitter campaign is targeted toward Chicago residents, TweepsMap helps you see how many of your followers are actually located in Chicago.

“One of the most important aspects of a campaign is to measure location to see where your followers are and if they are engaged or not,” says Samir Al-Battran, founder of TweepsMap. “TweepsMap helps you learn whether you need to adjust your campaign to reach your targeted audience.”

After authorizing the TweepsMap API, it generates a color-coded map with Twitter birds spread across it to show the number of followers in that specific location — red birds represent the largest number of followers, and yellow represents the second largest number.

Users can use the TweepsMap widget to display their own statistics on any website or blog.

“For individual users, TweepsMap is a fun tool to check out the distribution of their followers and share them on Twitter,” says Al-Battran. “For larger organizations, the goal of TweepsMap is to help them measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.”

TweepsMap does not automatically tweet results without the users permission or store personal Twitter account information.

One of the challenges with TweepsMap is that less than 10% of Twitter users do not add accurate locations on their Twitter accounts, says Al-Battran. Most users only add their country or state instead of their residing city. That’s why most of the Twitter birds on the TweetsMap represent the number of followers in a country rather than in a city.

The site now has about daily 1,000 users and Al-Battran plans to expand TweepsMap by launching premium services in the future for larger Twitter accounts.

Where are your Twitter followers located?

 

Source: Mashable

"Great Tip" - Keep Email Subject Lines Under 40 Characters

What people see in their inbox differs among email applications. An email viewed in Gmail will appear different when viewed in Yahoo! mail or Outlook. To make an impact even before they open the email, keep your subject line within the 40-character limit.

Yelp’s $2 Billion IPO to Hit in Early 2012

Yelp has hired Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to lead its $1.5 billion to $2 billion IPO in the first quarter of 2012, according to a report.

Yelp is expected to file its prospectus by the end of this year, reports The New York Times, which cites “several people briefed on the situation.” Yelp could not be reached for comment.

The company, which is known for its online reviews of local businesses, announced plans to go public in April. Previously, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman had said he wouldn’t consider an IPO for “several years.” Yelp also turned down a $500 million takeover bid from Google in early 2010.

Yelp’s planned public offering comes after a series of social media IPOs. LinkedIn’s May IPO was considered successful, and though Groupon pushed back the timing of its public offering a couple of times before going public last week, that IPO was also well-received.

Zynga, another social media company looking to go public, also delayed its planned IPO, though the company is now said to be preparing to offer shares to the public the week before Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, the biggest social media IPO of them all, Facebook’s, is now set for late 2012, according to a report.

Make Sure You're Using the Right Words

Want to get into the head of your customer and help your messaging at the same time? Use Google's free keyword research tool to see what people are actually searching for online when they think about your product or service. Try generic one- or two-word phrases as seed keywords in the tool and then let it tell you what people are thinking. Source: Manta

6 Best Practices for Modern SEO

Google’s search results aren’t what they used to be. Need proof? Just look at its results page. No longer solely comprised of traditional, organic site matches, Google now lists local maps, images, videos and social cues as well — and it’s affecting more than just what you see.

If you rely heavily on search engines for pageviews and sales, as many businesses do, Google search results will drastically affect how your customers find you. If your business needs to be seen and clicked, take into account the following six search engine tips.

1. Local SEO Is Taking Over

There’s a good probability that a large chunk of the Google searches you perform will display Google Places listings – and consumers are taking notice. SEO software firm SEOmoz did some eye-tracking case studies on Google’s SERP (search engine results page). The results show that users heavily gravitate toward any of Places’ listings, whether they’re mixed into organic lists, concentrated in a group of seven or even listed in the middle of the results page. The heat map above shows the activity around a Google search for “pizza.”

If your business relies on local listings, concentrate on scoring a seat at Google Places. You can do this by using:

- Citations: Ensure that your correct business information is listed in as many (reputable) sources as possible around the Internet. As always, consistency is king. If you write “Blvd.” instead of Boulevard on your Google Places page, make sure your other listings reflect the same.

- Google Places page optimization: Just like your website, make sure your Places page is properly optimized. Include categories that match exactly, and point your Places page back to a city-specific landing page if applicable.

- Reviews: Google will only display reviews from Google, but getting reviews from aggregators like Yelp, Superpages or Trip Advisor will help increase your presence.

2. You Can’t Have Search Without Social

The separation of search and social has officially ended. Social cues such as Twitter shares, Facebook likes and social bookmarking heavily influence search rankings. Essentially, search results are personalized for each person. With any SEO campaign you put into motion, include a social aspect to it to facilitate information sharing.

3. Think of People, not Robots, When Optimizing Keywords

People search in Google because they have a question. Anticipate those questions — whether about the best style of yoga pants or where to get the lowest mortgage rate. Your keywords and the content on your pages should reflect the answers to those questions. Keyword research is tedious, but it’s arguably the most important aspect of SEO. Transition away from thinking of keywords like data, and put more of an emphasis on the person who will be typing in that keyword.

4. Content Links Are King — Good Writers Are Sorcerers

Google is not stupid — it can spot paid and spam links. For the most effective long-term SEO strategy, move the focus back to great content, both on your website and across other sites. Guest blogging is great, for instance, but to get a leg up on your competition, target blogs that aren’t direct matches to your industry.

For example, a client of my company sells golf carts, so we wrote a blog post about the most tricked-out golf carts for tailgates, and the link we got back was one their competitors didn’t already have.

5. Check your Backend: Schema.org, Microformats and Rich Snippets

The Big Three (Google, Yahoo and Bing) have worked together to develop Schema.org, a set of website standards that will tell search engines what your site is about, making it easier for those engines to read the site’s data and index accordingly.

By using rich snippets, for example, you’re able to tell Google what information to feature in SERPs: product reviews and prices, upcoming events, recipe cooking times, etc. The added data will increase your click-through rate because users are able to preview more about the link before they commit to the click.

6. It Doesn’t Mean Anything Without Data

Whether you’re a one-man SEO show for your company or working in an agency with several clients, your site needs to see results. While ranking reports of keywords is still a great indicator of progress, personalized searches make it difficult to get the most accurate readings. Plus, when Google defaulted to private searches for users signed into their Google accounts, the company made it harder to track how people arrive at your site.

Start relying more on simple key performance indicators (KPIs) to show results, for instance, the number of landing pages you have, the bounce rate of those pages, and the number of keywords driving traffic to each of those landing pages. Google Analytics displays all of this data.

What are some other things you see that are affecting searches, and what are you doing to improve your rankings in these areas?

Source: Mashable

Don't Stop Talking About Your Business

You can do your business big favors if you have the boldness to simply strike up conversations in situations where most people usually keep to themselves. For example, on an airplane, in the grocery store, or on public transit--all are perfect situations where simply talking to people can have hugely positive networking effects.

Source: Manta

President Obama Threatens to Veto Law to Repeal Net Neutrality

The White House has threatened to veto Republican-sponsored legislation that would overturn the net neutrality rules the FCC passed last December.

The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on S.J. Resolution 6, “Disapproval of Federal Communications Commission Rule Regulating the Internet and Broadband Industry Practices”, sometime on Thursday. The resolution, if it were to pass both houses, would begin a process that could overturn the decision of the FCC. The U.S. House of Representatives rejected the FCC’s net neutrality rules back in April.

“Disapproval of the rule would threaten those values and cast uncertainty over those innovative new businesses that are a critical part of the Nation’s economic recovery,” the White House said in its veto threat. “It would be ill-advised to threaten the very foundations of innovation in the Internet economy and the democratic spirit that has made the Internet a force for social progress around the world.”

The FCC rules prevent broadband providers from blocking access to specific websites and applications. However, the rules are less clear when it comes to wireless providers. Supporters, such as Obama and the White House, believe that some regulations are necessary to stop ISPs such as Comcast from throttling or blocking content. Opponents, such as Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), one of the sponsors of the bill, argue that the net neutrality regulations would over-regulate the Internet, stifle the economy and set a bad precedent.

“The Internet and technology have produced more jobs in this country than just about any other sector,” Hutchison said on Tuesday. “It has been the cradle of innovation, it does not have a problem and it does not need fixing.”

With the President’s veto on the table, the bill is unlikely to become law. It would require a 2/3 vote of both houses to overturn the veto. Neither chamber has the votes to make that happen. The issue will likely continue to flare up though as the presidential election cycle heats up.

Source: Mashable

** I SURE HOPE THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN   :(

Create an Informal Advisory Board for Your Small Business

Put together an informal board of trusted advisers to serve as a sounding board and a source of ideas and honest advice. Make sure the members have varied levels of experience; look for a marketer, a finance person, a fellow entrepreneur, etc.

Source: Manta

16% of Cellphones Have Poop on Them

Worried your cellphone may fall into the 16% with poop on it? You should be scared — not just of the germs lurking on your mobile, but on all your favorite tech gizmos.

Before you type anything else into your keyboard, consider this: Keyboards, on average, are five times dirtier and have 60 times more germs on them than toilet seats. They are 150 times over the acceptable limit for bacteria.

For instance, the dirtiest device in your house is the TV remote. Same applies in hotels; the remote even beats the infamous bedspread.

If you want to keep your mobile out of the 16%, take some relief knowing you can keep your tech clean with sanitizing wipes, UV light cleaners, rubbing alcohol or microfiber cleaning cloths.

***This makes me SICK to think about!  Blech...

16% of Cellphones Have Poop on Them

Worried your cellphone may fall into the 16% with poop on it? You should be scared — not just of the germs lurking on your mobile, but on all your favorite tech gizmos.

Before you type anything else into your keyboard, consider this: Keyboards, on average, are five times dirtier and have 60 times more germs on them than toilet seats. They are 150 times over the acceptable limit for bacteria.

For instance, the dirtiest device in your house is the TV remote. Same applies in hotels; the remote even beats the infamous bedspread.

If you want to keep your mobile out of the 16%, take some relief knowing you can keep your tech clean with sanitizing wipes, UV light cleaners, rubbing alcohol or microfiber cleaning cloths.

***This makes me SICK to think about!  Blech...