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10 Easy Ways to Get More Links to Your Website Here are ten easy ways you can get more links to your website. 17 Ways to Make Your Small Business More Earth Friendly Whether or not you believe global warming could be the end of civilization, there are other compelling reasons to take action to be environmentally friendly in your business. Respect for the planet and life all around you is the most basic of those reasons, but here are three others: it will reduce your costs, increase your efficiency, and add to your USP (unique selling position). 3 Sales-Killing Website Mistakes Work at Home Moms Make When you design your first website, you're so excited about your new online business and eager to get it up and running. 5 Tips for Working with a Banner Ad Designer Are you considering ordering a banner ad design? Having a professionally designed banner advertisement created for your business can be a great choice. There are many designers out there to choose from, so here are some tips to help you select and work with a banner ad designer. 5 Very Quick Ways to Promote Your Information Products & eBooks Here are five very quick ways to promote your information products and ebooks. 5 Very Quick, Simple Ways to Promote Your Information Products & eBooks Got an information product you're ready to promote? Here are five very quick, simple ways to promote your information products and ebooks.   7 Essential WordPress Plugins Here are seven of the plugins I consider essential for any WordPress website I setup. These can help your WordPress site be more secure, more search engine friendly, easier to deal with, and more engaging for your visitors. 7 Steps to Keep Your WordPress Blog-Site More Secure WordPress is a great way to build and manage a website. Like any online software though, there are steps you should take to secure your WordPress installation and keep it safe from hackers. Some are common sense for any website (secure website hosting and choosing a secure password) and others are specific to WordPress (such as the plugins recommended below). 8 Easy Steps to Creating Your Own eBook or Special Report There are many great reasons to write your own ebooks. Two of the best reasons are: (1) It helps establish you as an expert on the products you sell or services you offer, and (2) it can add an additional stream of income to your business. Are You Answering Your Customers Questions? An effective website should focus on meeting the customer's needs and helping them be sure that the products you offer are exactly what they want. To help customers determine if your products or services are right for them, you need to answer their questions. Only when their questions are answered will they feel comfortable making a purchase. Are You Listening to the Right People? You’ve probably heard this advice before: You become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. We are influenced in a powerful way by those we choose to spend our time and energy with. This applies not only to your personal life and growth, but also to your business. Creating a supportive environment for your business to thrive is critical to create a successful business. Balancing Homeschooling and Working at Home A common reason for moms to homeschool their children and work from home is that the at-home lifestyle appeals to them. It sounds like an ideal situation – you’re home, the kids are at home, and everyone’s happy. Be Ready When Creativity and Inspiration Strike Tips to help you be prepared when creativity strikes and a few spare minutes appear. Bounce Rate - What Does it Mean for Your Website? If you track your website analytics, you may wonder what "bounce rate" means and whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. Whether a high bounce rate is reason to panic or not depends on the purpose of the particular web page and what's causing the bounce rate. Bright Ideas to Keep Your Newsletter Interesting If you struggle to come up with ideas for your newsletter articles, you aren’t alone! Many small business owners aren’t sure what to write about. You want topics that will be interesting to your readers and help them get to “know” you so they learn that you can be a trusted source of the information or products they want. Building Your Expert Status - What's Your Two Cents Worth? Are you looking for ways to get better known as an expert in your niche? Business Evolution: Why You Must Allow It To Happen Is your business growing and evolving? I've consulted with entrepreneurs who are considering changes (big or small) in the direction of their businesses and I've been there myself. It can feel a little intimidating to change directions. Here's what I've learned. Choosing a Domain Name - Seven Tips to Help You Choose a Good Domain Name More than 50 million domain names have been registered and more are registered every day. Are you ready to join in and get your own domain? This article covers some of the important things to consider.   Do You Really Need Business Goals? Absolutely, positively 100%, yes!! You need goals and you need them written down or mapped out, and here's why... Domain Registration Privacy Protection: Do You Need It? Do you know what personal information about you is accessible to spammers, hackers, and unethical businesses through the WHOIS record for your domain? Learn what the risks are and what you can do to protect yourself. Don't Confuse Your Customers! Two Quick Tips for an Easy to Use Website If your site isn’t easy to navigate, your customers will get confused, and confusion does not lead to happy shoppers or to more sales! Here are two quick tips to help keep you from confusing your customers. Don't Delegate What You Can Automate Working with a virtual assistant or other professional to help you with some of the routine tasks in your small business can be a great decision and free up your time to focus on your income generating activities. But delegate wisely! Don't delegate what you can automate. Save time and money by automating these six common tasks. Easy, Auto-Pilot Ways to Promote Your Blog Put your blog promotion on auto-pilot with these "set it once then forget it" promotional strategies. Eight Ways to Make Your Website Run More Smoothly Is your website running as smoothly as it could be? Here are eight important points to check the function and professionalism of your website. Email Overwhelm - Overcome it in 5 Steps Are you drowning in email? Got dozens or hundreds of messages in your inbox waiting for you to sort through and respond to them? Do you feel overwhelmed just thinking about clicking the "check mail" button? Don't panic! You can overcome that flood of email! Even Super Heroes Need Help - Ways to Get Support and Stay Sane Do you have support to help you manage running your small business while caring for your home and family? You'll notice many super heroes have sidekicks. No one thinks of Batman as less than a hero when when Robin helps out or Alfred takes care of his mansion. Finding Your Inner Super Hero - Creating Systems That Support You Do you have good systems? Checklists, charts, planners. Don't procrastinate on setting up systems. The time you invest to set it up will quickly pay off. Without systems I could never keep up. Five Areas You Can Evaluate to Reduce Your Home Office Expenses When you need to reduce your home office expenses, you need to know what your current expenses are, then take time to evaluate your needs and options. Here are five expenses you can evaluate to reduce your home office costs. Five Great Reasons to Host Your Own Wordpress Blog Are you considering starting your own blog? You may wonder whether you should: * go with a blogging service that’s hosted on another server where you get a subdomain like yourbusiness.bloggingsite.com * put your blog on your own domain and hosting space so your blog is at yourbusiness.com or yourbusiness.com/blog Here are five great reasons to consider using Wordpress on your own domain. Five Steps to Transform Your Home Office into a Sanctuary on a Budget With just a bit of work and creativity, you can transform your home office into a space that you feel energized by and enjoy spending time in. Four Tips To Help You Achieve Your Goals You can achieve your goals! Here are four tips to help you set your goals, plan to reach them, and succeed. Four Ways to Find Targeted Websites to Submit Your Articles To Are you ready to take your article marketing to the next level? Submitting to article directories is a great first action step in your article marketing strategy. For the next level of traffic and exposure considering submitting your articles directly to niche websites. Four Ways to Get Your Website Online Once you’re all signed up for hosting, the next step is to get your website online. Where should you begin? Handling a Confidence Crisis with Your Own "Positivity" File Running your own small business can be a bumpy road. Many small business owners go through moments were we aren't sure we can succeed or that we are "enough" (good enough, smart enough, talented enough, etc). Overcome the confidence crisis! Create your own positivity file. How (And Why!) to Create Your Own ArticlesByYou.com Website Do you use article marketing as one of your business strategies? If so, you need an ArticlesByYou.com website. How a Good Site Builder Program Can Reduce Your Website Costs An up-to-date and well maintained website is important for a small business. It's your 24/7 salesperson and customer service representative, always there promoting your products or services and answering questions for your customers. It can be a challenge for a small business start up to afford frequent website updates by a professional web designer (hourly rates can range from $25 to $100+). What can you do to reduce your costs? Consider a good website builder program. How Do You Handle "Problem Areas" in Your Business? I take one of four approaches to something I cannot do, do not like, or don't understand (any of these three reasons make it a "problem area" in my mind). How Menu Planning Can Save You Time and Reduce Your Stress Level Busy moms spend a lot of time preparing nutritious and yummy meals for their families. It isn’t the cooking and assembling the meals that takes so long – planning the meals and shopping for the necessary ingredients can take more time than the actual cooking! How Offer Your eBooks for Sale the Quick & Easy Way There are many ways to sell your information products. When you're publishing your first ebook it can be overwhelming trying to decide which way to go. Do you want to just accept a payment through PayPal then email the file to the customer? Can you afford the $100/month solution you've heard recommended? Is there a way to make the cart you're already using for other sales work for your ebook? I remember my head spinning at the options when I first got started. How to Add Video to Your Website Are you considering adding video to your website? It can be a great way to connect with your visitors and boost your conversion rates. How to Choose An Affiliate Program to Promote What are affiliate programs? Affiliate programs allow you to earn a percentage or set amount on sales of a product or service that you refer a new customer to. Thousands of businesses offer affiliate programs. You get to decide what products or services you’d like to promote. How to Choose an SEO Friendly Website Builder Avoid a website disaster by knowing what to look for to find a search engine friendly website builder. How to Choose the Right E-Commerce Solution for Your Website You need to know what you want and need before you start looking for an e-commerce solution. The more details you plan in advance, the better off you’ll be. How to Choose the Right Email Setup for Your Email Accounts: POP, IMAP, or WebMail There are three ways available to access your email with most website hosting accounts. You can choose from POP, IMAP, or Webmail. Which one is best for you? The overview below will explain the basics about how each works and when it might be a great choice for your email access. How to Choose the Right Website Builder for Your Small Business Website Website Builders provide an easy way for small business owners to create a website without learning HTML, CSS, or other website coding languages. With dozens and dozens of options, which one is right for your website? How to Choose Your Domain Name More than 50 million domain names have been registered and more are registered every day. Are you ready to join in and get your own domain? This article covers some of the important things to consider. How to Choose Your Website Host Finding the right company to host your website can be overwhelming. Where should you begin? How to Get a Year Worth of Ideas For Your Newsletter It can be a challenge to come up with new ideas for your newsletter on a weekly or monthly basis. You need ideas for topics that your readers are interested in! How to Get Great Tech Support in Four Easy Steps Keep these four tips in mind and you'll be able to resolve your technical web problems more quickly and with less frustration. How to Get Me to Un-Follow Or Un-Friend You on Social Networks Ready to lose your friends and connections on social networks? Let me share some tips that may help you. How to Promote Your Business with a Customer Welcome Kit This is a great way to make new customers feel special. Put together a “welcome kit” to send to each new customer that includes customer service resources, helpful information, and promotional details about other products or services you offer. How to Safely Register Your Domain Name Have you chosen the perfect domain name for your online business? Great! Time to get it registered. How to Speed Up Magento Commerce If you're running Magento Commerce on shared hosting, loading speed can be a challenge. Slow loading websites cause customers to click away and shop elsewhere. These steps should get your Magento installation moving faster than a turtle through syrup so your shoppers can happily fill their carts. How to Squeeze More Learning Time Into Your Day When You're a Work at Home Mom We know it's important to keep learning and growing, but how in the world are we supposed to fit time for that into an already too busy day as work at home moms? How to Survey Your Customers in Four Simple Steps One of the keys to success in business is to know what your customers want, so you can deliver it. How to Take a Sick Day When You Work From Home When you work from home, it can be a challenge to allow yourself to take a sick day, for various reasons. Is Your Website Working Against You? Is your website working for or against you in gaining clients and sales? Be sure that any "bells and whistles" are used carefully to enhance the visitors experience. Jazz Up Your Website: Two Easy Ways to Add More FUN! You've only got seconds to grab a visitors attention and get them to stick around and browse your website. What can you do to help keep them there? Here are two easy ways to add an element of professional fun to your website. Just ONE More Thing, Then I'll Be Ready! Do you think about growing and promoting your business, but stop yourself with the thought that you've got to get just one more thing into place before you can do that? Key Things to Know Before You Enter Any Joint Venture or Partnership Project When you get involved with another person or group of people, you need to go in “eyes wide open” as the saying goes. Your JV partner or group is going to reflect on you with their actions so you want to be absolutely sure it will enhance your image and boost customer confidence. It’s also important to be sure that all involved are receiving value from the arrangements. Here are six key things to consider before you enter any joint venture or partnership project. Make Marketing Fun--Your Business Needs a Personal Ad! Whether it's print ads in the newspaper or the matching programs online, personal ads are a popular way to find a person to share your life with. Marketing basics – what makes your business unique It's time to look at your business and embrace exactly what is unique about it. We're going to walk through a series of questions to help you identify what's special about your business. Just write down what comes to mind as you read each question. Newsletter Promotion Checklist: 16 Ways to Grow Your List Here are some easy and free ways you can promote your newsletter to gain subscribers. Print off a quick copy and then check off each promotion strategy as you complete it. Organize Your Marketing to Save Time Do you have time to market your WAHM business? Many work-at-home-moms market their businesses regularly when they start out and are desperate for that first paying customer. But when they get busy with clients, their marketing often falls to the wayside… until they realize they don’t have any work lined up for the next month. Then they swing back the other direction and heavily focus on marketing again. Preparing for 2009: 10 Things You Must Ask Yourself About 2008 As 2009 approaches, it’s time to look back at 2008 and evaluate your business. Consider the following questions. They’ll help you identify where things are working, what needs to change, and get some ideas flowing for making 2009 an even better year for your business. Product Sellers: Creating Your Policies Page When you’re just starting your business online, the policies page is easy to overlook or create too quickly. Well thought out policies will save you stress and frustration later. Take time now to decide how you will deal with troublesome situations, while you’re unemotional and not in the heat of the situation—it’s much easier to create fair, reasonable policies when your head is clear. Here are some important areas to cover in your policies and a few scenarios to be sure your policies address. Provide Better Customer Service and Save Time Using Auto-Responders Do you often send email acknowledgments of orders? Follow up emails to check that products were downloaded or received and the customer is happy? Emails requesting feedback or reviews? An auto-responder can save you time! Quick, Simple Ways to Recharge With juggling kids, homeschooling, home, business, everything that we as Mothers have in our hands, it can really get tough sometimes. Schedule a Business Strategy Day and Plan Your Way to Success Book a business strategy day to help you plan your way to business success. Seven Ways to Keep Your Domain Name Safe Clients and friends frequently approach me with questions about emails regarding their domain names that just don't "feel" legitimate, and for good reason! Domain name scams are becoming more and more common. These scam attempts are also becoming more sophisticated, less obvious and using unethical techniques that cause the domain owner to worry that they may lose their domain or another company may be trying to steal it. Depending on the scam, they may be after your domain name, your money in transfer fees, or your credit card details for fraud and identity theft. Six Big Banner Advertising Mistakes to Avoid Are you getting dismal results from your banner ads? You may be making one of these mistakes! Six Time Management Tips for Online WAHMs Your online business can become a time-sucking black hole, unless you learn to manage your time wisely. It can begin with something as innocent as a routine check of your email, or a visit to your favorite networking site. Then before you know it, “just one more thing” has turned into 10 more things, it’s 3am, the kids are still awake, and you’re left wondering where all your time went! Six Ways to Keep Your Newsletter Out of the SPAM Box It’s a newsletter publishers nightmare–being accused of sending spam and then blocked from reaching their subscribers. Speak Your Mind - It's Good For Your Business! One of my personal challenges is that I'm not one of those naturally outspoken people. Tackling Procrastination: Six Ways to Overcome It Do you find yourself procrastinating? Putting off tasks that truly need done? Here are some of the main reasons for procrastination and ways to overcome them. Three Easy Steps to Creating Your Own Effective Sales Newsletter Are you capturing visitor information so you can stay in touch with them? If not, I've got good news! It’s easier than you might think and more important than you may realize. Three Easy Ways to Make Your Website Builder Template Uniquely Yours Website builders are popular because they're a quick and easy way to create your own website. Most are "point and click" style, requiring no knowledge of HTML or CSS code and offer dozens or hundreds of nicely designed templates to choose from. But since everyone using the website builder has access to those same templates, you've got a challenge. You don't want your website to look exactly like other websites out there. What can you do? Three Keys to a Successful Article Reprint Request You can be successful in requesting your articles be reprinted on targeted niche websites if you know how to ask. Three Mistakes That Can Get Your Newsletter Trashed or Trash Your Responses Don't let your email newsletter get tossed into the virtual trash can before it's opened, or lead your customers to the wrong place when they're ready to purchase. Be sure you aren't making these three common mistakes. Three Steps to Slashing Your Home Business Operating Costs If you know you need to slash your small business budget, but aren't sure how to begin, here are three steps to help you cut responsibly. Three Tips to Your Own Distinctive Newsletter Design Now that you've got your newsletter up and running, are you ready to make it distinctive? Using a custom template can help your newsletter catch the eye of the subscriber as they sort through their email. It can also reinforce your brand and professional status. A custom template will put your logo, photos, colors, and other customizations into the email newsletters that you send out. Two Things You Must Know to Keep Your Website Safe Imagine that you sit down at your computer one day, type in your domain name, and instead of the business website you've worked to build you see some crazy page that's definitely not your website. What happened? What do you do next? It can happen to you if you don't know how to keep your website safe! Two Ways to Keep Your Business Running Smoothly Through the Holidays The holiday season can be a test for any work at home mom. It’s challenging enough to juggle business and home on regular days. The holidays can feel like a three-ring circus has moved in. Thankfully there are ways you can make it easier to keep up with it all. Understanding the Basics of Website Statistics Learning to understand your website statistics can help you improve your website for visitors, measure if your promotional strategies are working, and find new opportunities to promote your business. Website Crash? Don't Panic! How to Recover Your Files and Be Better Prepared for Next Time It's the event every website owner fears... your host's server goes poof in a fantastic crash and burn... and takes your website down with it. Don't panic yet, there's hope! This article covers what you can do to minimize your risk of a crash and maximize your ability to quickly and fully recover, then offers some tips and tricks to use if a crash caught you unprepared. What is a banner ad and how does it work What is a banner advertisement? It's a graphical (image) advertisement used online that links to the advertiser's website. Banner sizes are measured in pixels. The most common size online is 468 x 60. This means it's 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels high. What is a Banner Ad and How Does it Work? What is a banner ad? A banner ad is a graphical (picture) advertisement. The most common size online is 468 x 60. Banner sizes are measured in pixels. This means it’s 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels high. What’s Your Marketing Personality? For new business owners marketing can be a big challenge. If you aren’t sure where to begin, take some time to think about what you enjoy, and you’ll find your “marketing personality.” You can use that to build a marketing plan that you won’t dread acting on. Where Are You Going? 12 Focus Finders to Help You in Your Journey Where are you going? 12 focus finders to help you in your entrepreneurial journey Picture yourself driving down the road in your car. You've got so many things to focus on at once. Kids in your car. Other drivers on the road. Your rear view mirror. Your side view mirrors. The speedometer, the gas gauge, the check engine light. Who Are Your Ideal Customers and Where Can You Find Them? Have you ever thought about this question? I’ll admit, when I first started my website design business my concern was only the second half of the question – the “where do I find clients?!” part. Many new businesses focus only on trying to find clients or customers and skip the critical step of identifying their “perfect” or “ideal” customer (also known as “niche”). Who's Talking About You and Your Business Online? Are you monitoring what's said about you or your business online? You should be! Why You Need to Say "No" to Some Projects Service providers and freelancers often feel under pressure to offer their services to anyone who requests them. But sometimes the best answer is no. Working From Home and Home Schooling - How to Get Everything Done Here are some tips that help me get more done while working from home and home schooling my children. You Rock at Your Business - So Tell People! If you're reading this article file under Entrepreneurialism, I think it's safe to assume you've got a small business, correct?

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