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We hope you find this arcthve useful. A subscription to The Small Business Advisor Newsletter is free. Subscribe now - it's easy! The Small Business Advisor Newsletter for April, 2003 ======================== ======================== ======================== There are three main threats to your business's vital information flows: file and service-based attacks from viruses, worms, and Internet intrusions; data loss through catastrophic failures of storage media or disasters (think tornadoes, floods, and terrorists); and employee actions, whether they are accidents or malicious attacks. You may think that this is an area that will cost lots of cash, but the simple fact is that keeping your computers and network up-to-date with the latest patches and system updates goes a long way toward minimizing your exposure to viruses, worms, and other hacker exploits. In fact, the greatest risk from virus and Internet attacks is loss of productivity, not loss of data. However, even if your data is completely backed up and can be recovered completely if destroyed by a virus, the loss of an hour's, or a day's work, can erase hard-won profits. Read the entire article discussing your system's vulnerability to file- and service-based attacks and how to take simple steps to reduce your exposure here! ======================== Guess what? You are not going to live forever. Thinking about business succession is about as popular as writing your will – but it is a big mistake not to plan early. Not doing so can cause big problems later. Failure to plan for business succession can result in huge monetary loss not to mention the loss of the business itself. Taxes can easily take 50% resulting in bills that can only be paid by selling the business. The small business owner must carefully think through the process of succession. Who to leave the business to? What to take from the business? The major succession alternatives include Selling the business (possibly to employees) The right choice is never easy and it’s a good idea to get your professional advisers involved to ensure you understand the issues involved. By planning early you will have the option of investing time in a family member and or employee(s) to ensure they have the background to continue the business. Additional training may be required. Or, you may find that you need to search for someone new. Planning early also allows you to let existing customers become comfortable with any new people they will be dealing with. Ensure that any “secret” processes or formulas are made available to those who will succeed you. If you have planned early and carefully, when it’s time you may simply step aside knowing the business will continue. ======================== You’re a one-person business! What gets done is up to you – success or failures belong to you. It’s a lot of responsibility but the freedom is worth it all. Right? Right? I know, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and it seems that there is simply not enough time to do all you want to do! There is a way out of this dilemma – technology! There is little doubt that technology has allowed the small one-person businesses to flourish right under the noses of the big guys. We’re more flexible, have less inertia, provide more personal service, and respond to needs of customers. But we need to ensure that we make good use of every minute and this means thinking through the various tasks we perform and decide how technology can assist. Here are a few specific examples –no doubt you will come up with more! 1. Answering the telephone. Ah, the phone – a great tool and a great irritant. Save time by having a good answering machine (or, if absolutely necessary, an answering service). How do you spend time on the phone? If you find that you’re frequently answering the same questions consider an answering system that allows the caller to depress different numbers for various snippets of information. 2. Do you spend time driving to the local copy center? Maybe you should have your own copier or possibly a faster printer – even a color printer which are becoming very inexpensive. Think about the cost of trips in money and time when determining if you should really spend $500 on a newer, faster printer. 3. Answering questions; presenting information to clients. Necessary but time consuming. Consider the Internet. This wonderful tool is amazing. Place a listing of frequently asked questions about your product or service online; a catalog; details about your background; customer endorsements; and other details that a customer may want to view. Advertise your website just like you would advertise your telephone number. 4. Mailing and shipping. The last thing you need is to waste time in lines at the post office! Don’t do it. Get yourself a postal scale and meter (Pitney-Bowes has an inexpensive program). Use the postal service Internet site (www.usps.gov) to determine costs and the most economical ways to mail. 5. Use e-mail rather than the telephone. Much more efficient and no playing “tag.” 6. Automate you banking. Sign up for your banks internet-based services. If they don’t offer this service, look for another bank! Make every minute count! ======================== For the technically inclined, there are numerous places on the web to get detailed, in-depth information on how to properly optimize a web site for the best possible search engine rankings. However, many people don't care about the technical aspects of search engine optimization- they just want to know what is wrong with their site (and how to fix it). What follows is a practical guide that covers some of the most basic search engine issues. It is in no way intended to be comprehensive, but it should help the average site owner determine whether their site is optimized, and if not, how to make some simple changes to improve their search engine rankings. Issue #1- The Title Bar. On your homepage, what does the title bar say? If you use Internet Explorer, this is the blue bar at the extreme top of the window that displays your page (it may include the words "Microsoft Internet Explorer" at the end). Does your company name appear here by itself, when you have more important keywords to emphasize? Worse yet, does it say "untitled"? This area should contain the most important keywords you see on your homepage (Don't have any text on your homepage? See issue #2). To check the rest of your site, click on any link from your homepage and see if the words in this title bar change for each page in your site. They should- and each title bar should contain the most important keywords from their corresponding page. Note: Very long keyword strings in the title bar should be avoided- six words or less is optimal. Also, words in the title bar should not repeat more than once, and identical words should not appear next to one another. Issue #2- Content. Search engines all try to list sites that contain good content. Translation- you need words on your pages, not flashy graphics. This text should contain the most important keywords that your potential customers would use to find you on a search engine. If you have very few or no words on your pages, it is a good idea to add some, ideally around 250 per page. For aesthetic reasons, this is not always practical, but even 100 well-written words can have an impact on rank. It is also important that you make certain that the words are written in a language the search engines can read. Using your mouse, bring your cursor down to the text on one of your web pages. Clicking and holding down the left mouse button (make sure you aren't near a link) see if you can highlight just one or two words of the text. If you can, everything is most likely fine. If nothing happens, or you can only highlight a large block, it is most likely in graphic form. Graphic text needs to be replaced by standard html text to allow the search engines to read it. Your web expert should have no problem understanding what you require, and the transition should be fairly simple and affordable. Issue #3- Meta Tags. Some people believe that meta tags are the Holy Grail of search engine optimization. Unfortunately, their effectiveness is limited (many engines ignore them completely), but they can play a limited role in determining rank on some engines. To see if your site has meta tags, go to your home page. Click the "view" command at the top of the browser window. From the pull-down menu, select "source". This should open up another window that shows your code. Much of this may seem indecipherable, but there should be two commands there (usually near the top of the code). One of these says meta name="description" content= and will go on to describe your company and products, and one says meta name="keywords" content= and goes on to list applicable keywords for your site. If these tags are missing, have your web expert insert them. Issue #4- Links. Link popularity has become increasingly important to search engine rankings, with 19 of the top 20 engines using it in their ranking algorithm. Simply put, search engines give a ranking boost to sites that have incoming links from quality, related sites. There are numerous free tools on the web that will allow you to see what sites link to yours (just type "free link popularity check" in your favorite search engine). If you don't have many sites linking to yours, it may be time to start a link building campaign. This is where you find quality, non-competing sites in your industry and ask them if they would like to exchange links. An additional benefit of link exchanges is that these links can bring you additional, highly targeted traffic. Conclusion Although following the above guidelines will by no means guarantee you top page rankings for your keywords, fixing one or more of the problems should have a very positive impact on your search engine rankings. For the volumes of potential customers that a search engine can send to your site, it's certainly worth the effort. Return to top of page - Back to Home Page - Back to Archive Index |