Ideas for Business

Small business websites can benefit from including government sources in their content.
There’s plenty of public domain information, and you’ll be surprised to find relevant content that your readers will find helpful. Updating your webpage with content and important keywords is the fastest way to improve your rank on search engines.

But what about copyrights?
Much of the information is public domain and copyright free.
Public domain government sources are generated with your tax dollars–so you have every right to access this content.

Do a search on public domain government sites and you’ll find a vast array of subjects such as transportation, maps, psychology, photos, statistics, education, finance, engineering, art and entertainment, and the list goes on…

Some uses for public domanin, government sources are: for marketing research, as a statistic to prove a specific trend, as fun facts, or for data gathering in a particular area or field.

One word of warning: Some information is outdated and can be riddled with errors or biased opinions–not that other web content articles don’t contain similar discrepencies–but check the facts and strive to be as accurate as possible.

Look for copyright and permission notices on U.S. Federal Government publications and websites, but if you don’t find one, don’t assume there isn’t one.

You can check public domain use by visiting the Copyright & Intellectual Property Working Group (CENDI).

Many government sources offer articles, statistics, and graphs written directly on a webpage or placed in an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

If you find information you’d like to use that’s in a PDF file, you should consider converting them to a webpage. Why?

Because Web pages load quicke
You can place a liink from that document directly to your site
Keywords are picked up by search engines in web pages
PDF files don’t rank well on search engines

Some government sites that aren’t public domain are:

The U.S. Postal Service is exempt (you may not use).
Some governmental works were writen by private individuals and companies and are copyright protected.
Certain governmental organizations such as the NTS (National Technical Information Service) has a five-year copyright protection, so check the dates.

Sounds like a lot of rules? Not really. Not when compared to the mammoth amount of information available.

By doing a simple search on public domain content, you can find great information for your small business website, build content, and improve your website ranking.

Like most Canadians, we get pretty darn excited right around the NHL trade deadline. Rumors are flying this time of year and we get itchy for a blockbuster deal.

But which rumors have any substance to them? Which trades might actually go down? Enter the new hockey rumor democracy, Hockey Rumors .ca. It’s a quick little app we whipped up to keep track of all the juicy off-ice gossip and let you, the hockey fan, bet on the outcome.

The site is still pretty rough around the edges but the NHL trade deadline is less than a week away so we decided to let this one hit the web a bit early. As always, hi-5 for any suggestions!

Remember that great oldies song, “I Get Around?”
That should be the theme song of small business owners when it comes to Internet marketing.
It’s best to approach the online community by touching on as many bases as possible.

According to SmallBusinessTrends.com, a recent poll taken by Zogby International in conjunction with WeMedia state that 63% of Americans believe that entrepreneurs and small businesses “will lead the way” as we move past the current economic climate.

There’s no better time than now to establish your name, brand, and recognition on the Internet.

Smart Ways to Create Your Small Business Web Presence:

• Get Social–social media, that is. It’s time to join Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and don’t forget to focus on those business related sites such as Ecademy, Ryze, Networking for Professionals, Tribe, Care2, Xing and MEETin.

• It’s important to register on these social media sites because there’s such a thing as “social squatters,” people and companies who register as you, your company name, and even your product names. Posing as you, they contact interested parties, they take your clients, and you never know if you didn’t register and monitor your account.

• Make sure you can be found in all sections of the major search engines. Submit to the Open Directory Project and check into some helpful sites such as SubmitExpress, AddPro, or FreeWebSubission for easy directions and to make sure you cover your bases.

• Visit other blogs and comment, but keep it professional and related to the topic. It’s smart to have a signature that lists your name and website so it’s not so blatant that you’re on the prowl for business. If you believe you have something valuable to offer, that’s how it’ll come across.

• Join forum discussions. Will you get flamed? Maybe, but keep a good sense of humor, and as long as you don’t push your business and have contribute nothing, they just might tolerate you–especially if you offer needed advice, visit regularly, and enjoy interacting.

• Continue to send out e-newsletters and update your website with content. Write articles, interview a customer, or feature a product. Email your clients and offer a discount, especially if they forward your e-newsletter on to others.

The World Wide Web is like a great party. Your small business is standing at the door (your website), and you need to work the room, shake hands, pass out business cards, and make connections.

Start clockwise, take a deep breath and start shaking (online) hands.

E-newsletters are now an online marketing standard and a great way for small businesses to build their client base. Unlike print publication, e-newsletters can be sent via email and is a great way to connect with your audience between website visits–and it gives them a reason to return to your site.

E-newsletters are an effective way to increase website traffic, build your brand recognition and establish you and your company as an “expert” or authority in your field. And the added surprise is that if you write really good e-newsletter and you’re consistent, you might get invited to write a syndicated column, speak on the radio or TV program.

It all starts–and ends with content. Face it, everyone’s email overloaded and most of us subscribe to many more e-newsletters than we can possibly read. Yours has to be worth opening.

Do a bit of browsing, say on Yahoo! Google, or Topica and type in some of your keywords and e-newsletter and see what’s already out there. The easiest way to get started is to start with an e-newsletter template.

How to Write a Great E-Newsletter:

Every reader wants to feel that someone is talking directly to them. Pick a spokesperson and trickle in a few personal anecdotes here and there.

Be funny. Be opinionated. Be edgy. Be…something. Show some personality. Write in a conversational tone

Start with a Table of Contents–disclose what will be covered so that if something catches their attention, they can scroll right to it.

Write a feature story. Highlight a customer or recent event and make sure it has that inviting appeal–it’s uplifting and invites the reader to check out the rest of the newsletter.

Feature a customer–if you interview a customer or client, post their picture and use a quote, it’s almost a given they’ll tell all their family and friends to check out the newsletter.

Always include a calendar of events. If you always do a charity walk in the fall, list it. If you have seasonal promotions and sales, list those too. If you’re going to be featured on the radio–put it on the calendar!

People like factoids. Always include a couple of “Who Knew?” kind of quotes that they might want to pass onto a co-worker or friend.

Polls and contests are perfect to list on your newsletter.

If you get letters from customers and clients, list those too. Encourage those “letters to the editor,” and promise to answer them either on the newsletter or by personal email, and then keep your word.

Keep company business to a minimum. Do announce community service, new product or service announcements, or an addition to your staff, but keep it brief.

It’s best to go with a plain-text format for newsletters with a forced 50-character line length. You can offer HTML or rich media as an option, but default to text. Don’t include URLs with more than 50 characters because it will have to be split on two lines.

Keep e-newsletters to 5-7 pages. Unless you have experience and promote a lot of products, your readers will feel overwhelmed by mammoth newsletters.

Create an easy to read e-newsletter with solid content that’s delivered in a consistent and timely manner, and you’ll begin to see viewers subscribe and traffic build on your small business site.

About a week ago, a business blogger came to me wondering why she wasn’t getting more traffic. She had just started her blog three months ago. She said she checked out a successful blog in her industry and was publishing posts similar to the posts on that blog.

I checked out the successful blog she was talking about. It was a three year old blog with mostly short posts. The posts were usually less than 100 words and included one picture.

I told her this blog gets a lot of traffic not so much because of its content but because it got started earlier when there wasn’t a lot of competition in the “blogosphere”, or blogging world. Sure, the content wasn’t low quality but today you need to have higher quality content to generate a lot of traffic.

Today, the posts that attract links and traffic are usually longer posts. When I say “longer posts”, I mean content that is at least 400 words. And oftentimes the longer, the better.

Longer posts get more links because they have higher perceived value. The successful blogs less than two years old all seem to have long posts as the bulk of their content.

Still, many bloggers are trying to build an audience with short posts. This trend allows allows bloggers who write longer, more in-depth posts to stand out from the crowd and earn the attention of more readers. There is much more competition today in the blogosphere. Anything that allows you to differentiate your blog should be considered.

Also, long posts are usually more unique than short posts. Short posts tend to just be commentary of an interesting link. These type of posts are not very unique. They are easy to emulate and many people are already publishing these short, commentary link posts.

Even if your style is to write short posts, I would at least try mixing in a longer post 1-3 times a month.

How long is your average post?