Business Blogs - The Smarter Way To Promote Your Business!

12/10/2009

When you compare most of the options available for promoting your business, it’s clear that the world wide web offers many attractive benefits and possibilities for businesses to not only create greater exposure for their products and services, but also to leverage the business owner’s time and effort.

There is a smart, cheap, best, easy and fast solution. It’s called a business blog.

Some of the immediate advantages a blog offers businesses over regular, static web sites, are a smarter content publishing and management platform, more direct involvement with their customers, built-in capabilities like RSS feeds and search engine notification, and greater control and flexibility over the way content is managed.

In addition, it is easier to promote and expand your business networks with a blog, it is a web site, if you know how. What's more is that the promotion of your work can have a longer life, and give you like than traditional newspaper and radio advertising, advertising media. (In fact, you can combine these, for example, so that your current promotion is your blog page, and then send a broadcast or print advertising customers to visit your blog.)

What’s the difference between a business blog and a business website?

You can make a business blog look and feel exactly like a website – in fact, many of the sites you are visiting right now are probably powered by blogging platforms like WordPress, instead of popular web design HTML applications like Frontpage or Dreamweaver. A significant difference, is that you don’t need to know web site coding language like HTML to run a business blog, or add and modify content on your site. You simply add content and publish. This makes business blogs a perfect online marketing tool for business owners.

Another important difference is that blogs allow you to have "conversations" and build interactive relationships with other people, where static web sites tend to be more of a "one-way" vehicle for presenting information to visitors.

What if you already have a web site?

If you currently have a website that requires you to contact your web developer, web designer, web master or an IT savvy friend, nephew, niece or neighbor every time you want to make a change to your site, then you definitely need to consider adding a blog to your site. Simply install the blog in a subdirectory of your domain (e.g. yourdomain.com/blog), then promote your business using the blog and link your posts back to your site for more information about your products or services, to purchase, etc …

If you don’t have a website yet, then save yourself money on costly web development and a lot of hassle and just use a blog. With a blog, you can easily promote your business by adding regular posts and articles about a variety of different topics.

Here are just some ideas for things you can write about your business, then post on your business blog:

Product recalls Customer service information (e.g. how to ship product back, refund policies, etc.) FAQs Profiling customers Information your customers would find useful, educational, informative, entertaining, etc.New things coming soon to your business Profiling members of your team News about your industry Top 10 lists Product / Service tips (how to spot quality, how to avoid paying too much or being ripped off, etc ..)News about your own business Product / Service benefits

As you can see, there’s no shortage of content to write about when it comes to promoting your business.

Now … just getting a blog up and running is not really going to help you. You need to know how to configure it properly if you want to achieve the best results with the least effort.

Fortunately, there is a good resource, I suggest you a more detailed study, if you are aware of the benefits and the use of blog services to help you promote your business and sell your products and services, intelligent edge, but also a sense of interest. One, called SelfPublishWebcom provides two ways to help you build your business, not only make your site fast in Google and other major search engines index (usually in a short period of 2-3 days) Web blog, but they told How do you fully configure, make it your business a powerful marketing tool, with many built-in marketing automation features, you do not even need to consider.

You just write about your business and the automated system running silently in the background goes to work for you.

SelfPublishWebcom offers two options: You can install the full set up and configure your company website / business blog for you and you're ready to go in as little as 4-5 working days, or if you have several hundred dollars You can save their complete

I've had a chance to fully review their offers and I thoroughly recommend the step-by-step video training tutorials they offer as a DIY cheaper alternative. You get access to a private Member's Area where you can watch all of the training videos and download all of the materials, plus ongoing support. The videos are excellent and make everything really easy to follow, and the information is never overwhelming. You are only given what you need to know in order to get the next task done. Additional resources are provided in the member's area, plus you get training emails, and access to a member's forum.

In my opinion, the smartest option is to purchase the step-by-step video training tutorials (selling for less than $100 last time I checked), then assign the task of installing, setting up and configuring the site to somebody in your team if you don't want to go through the tutorials yourself. Like I said earlier, the instructions and video tutorials are really easy to follow, so anyone can do it.

Posted in: dreamweaver tutorial| Tags: Business Blog blogs time web world content exposure owner promote

ASP.NET – What is it and who needs to know it?

12/02/2009

So, you’re developing a website and want to incorporate the newest and exciting technologies on it? If you’re a business owner or website developer that has to maintain your own site, having ASP.NET on your site can give you the competitive edge and improve your bottom line. You might not be that familiar with it, but you’ve probably heard of it. Below explains what it is, how it works, and what types of interactive features you can set up with it once it’s implemented.

What is it?

Designed and marketed by Microsoft to give programmers the ability to build interactive and dynamic websites, the first ASP.NET was released in 2002 as the successor of ASP (Active Server Pages). It was built with the ability to allow programmers to write the code using any supported .NET language like C# and VB.NET and works well with Visual Basic and HTML.?

ASP.NET allows the programmer to build very large applications, but still keep the code clean and organized. This is the first program to allow this type of structured code writing on the web. It separates the code from the display and also allows programmers to have pages with no ASP.NET code at all. This type of code allows programmers to quickly and efficiently add controls, change the display, add events and much more. It gives a company website a more professional look and feel, and makes it easy to navigate for the customers.

How does it work?

ASP.NET is basically like HTML. When a browser, the HTML file, the server returns the file immediately. When a browser is an ASP.NET file, the request to the ASP.NET server engine, which is passed by IIS. Line by line, reads the ASP.NET engine, the file server and then executes the scripts. Then, the ASP.NET file is returned as plain HTML to the browser. Sounds simple enough? Who Learning ASP.NET should already know, HTML, XML, WWW, JavaScript or VBScript, ASP or PHP.

What kind of features would you like?

ASP.NET always a website to be dynamic. There are many interactive actions to utilize, including adding a survey to your website, placing a calculator on your website, enabling data retrieval, creating a monthly calendar, sending emails from your website, setting up real-time chat rooms, and much more.

This technology can provide you and your Web-based business than other competitors. Learn more about today.

Posted in: asp.net| Tags: Business NET Website site ability asp developer owner edge itif

Owner Builders: 43 Interview Questions You Need to Ask When Choosing the Right Sub-Contractors

11/16/2009

Owner builders monitored the construction of their new home, cutting the cost of a general contractor. To do this, although they will have, an owner builders hire and manage their own subcontractors.

Choosing the right subcontractors who will make the difference between a successful owner builder construction project and financial ruin.

Owner builders need to ask these 43 questions when choosing their sub-contractors:

Owner Builder Questions to Sub-Contractors

1) How long have you been in business?

2) Have you or your partners worked under any other names?

3) How many jobs do you do per year?

4) How many jobs do you work concurrently?

5) How much time are you (the owner of the sub-contractor firm) on site personally?

6) How many crews do you have?

7) Will you be working with the crew on my site?

8) Do you sub out any of the work? If so, what?

9) Do you have a contract you use? (Not a contract of their own construction company owner, and if possible all of the sub, please use the contract with the contractor.)

10) Can you provide me with a copy of the contract in advance?

11) If you work for a foreman how long? If the work itself is not the owner of the company (owner builders have this question.)

12) Please provide me with a bank reference.

13) Please provide me with a copy of your insurance certificate.

14) Do you have any for you arising from any owner or builder you are working for? (Owner builders can check their bankruptcy, judgments and litigation background. Let them know that you will check.)

15) If yes, why, and what was the outcome?

16) How many change orders would you consider average per job?

17) whether there is any change orders or charges (except for the obvious change in the cost)? Some contractors charge this fee.

18) If a mistake is made by one of your crews, who pays for it?

19) What kind of warranty do you provide?

20) Are your warranties guaranteed by you or a third party?

21) Please provide 3 (or 5) references for work done in the last 6 months.

22) Please provide 3 (or 5) suppliers you buy materials from.

Owner Builder Questions to Sub-Contractor's References

1) How would you rate your experience with this contractor?

2) How would you rate the contractor's communication with you?

3) What are the contractor's strong points?

4) Weak points?

5) Why did you choose this contractor? Was it quality, price, reputation, other?

6) Was the work finished on time?

7) Was the work completed on budget?

8) Would you hire this contractor again?

9) Have you called them back for any warranty work?

10) If yes, how did they respond?

11) Did they keep the work area clean and neat?

12) Were they easily accessible by phone?

13) Was he (if the owner) on site or did he have a supervisor on site?

14) Was the on-site supervision adequate?

15) Would you recommend them to a family member?

Owner Builder Questions to Sub-Contractor's Supplier References

1) How long have you known the contractor?

2) How would you rate his/her reputation?

3) Does he/she have an open account with you?

4) If so, what are the payment terms, and does he pay on time?

5) How much of your business does he do with you each year?(1%, 5%, etc.)

6) What is your relationship with the contractor? (Is it strictly business, personal friend, family, etc.?)

Remember, most home owner builder makes more ready before hammering the first nail. Owner builders will save considerable time and money this way.

Owner builders who skip these steps and who think they can have a verbal agreement with a sub-contractor get burned in the long run.

Remember the big picture! The target building owners is to build our dream home and save tens of thousands of dollars in the process. This does not mean owner builders must be cheap.

And it does not mean that owner builders should skip steps just to get to the fun of building - you will have plenty of time for that!

Posted in: interview questions| Tags: company work site choosing contract construction sub builder contractor owner

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