More Than A Few Words

There is no one perfect design for your home page.  In this week's show we weigh the pros and cons of different designs and talk about things you should consider as you plan your next web update. 

When you write something for your blog you hope someone will read it. Every now and then you get a bonus when someone likes the content well enough to share it excerpts on their blog.   And if that blog has high traffic the quality link is worth its weight in gold.   

It's simple - you want to get noticed and be successful. The number one goal for any small business owner is recognition and exposure for their brand. Breaking through the noise and putting yourself in front of the right potential customers takes careful planning and a bit of innovation. How can you leverage new and unique opportunities to stay ahead of the game and stand out in the crowd?

LinkedIn is making some big changes.  Product pages are out and the new Showcase Pages are in.   Wondering what are Showcase pages and what can you do with them?  Jarred and Lorraine will step you through some of the exciting opportunities these pages can give small business owners.     To read more on this topic go to our blog 

How did you access your email 10 years ago?  Yahoo?  AOL? Hotmail? Or were you an Outlook users?  Regardless of what you were using, your world changed ten years ago when Google launched Gmail.  For those of you who signed up right away and even those of you still waiting to create your first Gmail account, the launch of this product changed how we all expected email to work.     Now 10 years later, Google is still innovating. Join us as we talk about where they have been and where we are all likely to go next.    

A thriving company culture drives innovation, entrepreneurship and productivity. Has your business gone through all the necessary steps to  define a clear mission and purpose? Developing these crucial culture elements and publishing them for your potential customers to see builds trust and authority. You can also use the principles you develop to help guide everything from the hiring process to partnerships with other businesses.   

Building great relationships is the key to any successful business endeavor. Most people don’t have the time to get networking wrong.  Having a game plan for each event you attend and each relationship you develop goes a long way in building your brand, growing you business and establishing trust in the community. The question is: Where do you start? This week we will share our favorite tips and tricks on how you can build a productive business network.   Want to learn more about this topic? Fill out the form below to receive a free copy of our Guide to a Healthy Networking Habit.

The technology of the internet continues to evolve.  So what's next?  What will the internet look like just a few years from now?

Not every advertising vehicle is right for every business.Should you advertise on Linkedin? Yelp or the Yellow Pages.com?   This week we will talk about some things you should keep in mind  And if you want to learn more, download our Online Advertising Guide. 

Branding is easy with a new company. You have clean slate.  There are no expectations, no existing impressions to overcome.  That isn't the case when an 11 year old company decides to change their name.     Our guest this week, Muhammad Yasin the Marketing Director at Perq  shared the ups and downs of that company's recent re-branding exercise. 

You have been spending months working on your blog posts, but no one seems to be reading them.  This week Jarred and Lorraine talk about some of the reasons readers are not flocking to your site, and how to fix that. 

Twitter is the ticker tape newsreel of the modern era. It's a global watering hole, perfect for researching the latest trends, following breaking news, and interacting with the needs of customers. Its low barrier-to-entry puts everyone from celebrities to plumbers on the same playing field. Have you found your brand's voice among the crowd? This week, Lorraine introduces newcomer Jarred Juett to the Roundpeg family. They discuss the maturation of  Twitter - from its infant stage as a platform for snark, gossip, and true innovation, to its evolution as a tool for customer service, broadcasting, and transparent communications.

While every business plan covers the same basic topics the emphasis is different based on who will be reading your plan.  What a banker wants is dramatically different from what an investor needs to know.    Want to learn more?  Download our free business plan outline. 

The big game was a blow out, but what about the advertising battle played out on social media and on TV?  Anne and Lorraine talk about the real winners and losers of yesterday's game. 

All good things come to an end.  That is especially true for content marketing.  Even the best campaign can only run so long.  So how do you know when it is time to call it quits? 

It is so much easier to do anything when you plan ahead.  That is especially true when it comes to your content marketing.     It is tough to do your best work if you wait till the last minute to create a blog post, email or social media update,   Using a content calendar, you can organize your month around topics, themes or events which are relevant to your business.  You can anticipate the kind of content (video, photograph,blog post, landing page, worksheet or ebook) you will need to support each of your themes.     What should your content calendar look like?  You can find an example here or download our worksheet and create your own. 

When it comes to your website there is always something new.  A new feature or tool.  This week we share some of our favorite web enhancements, things you can do to improve the functionality and user experience of your website.    If you enjoy the podcast, consider downloading our white paper on this same topic for even more suggestions. .  

When it comes to your product or service, who are the influencers? Who will others look to when they need help deciding what to buy?  Do you have a specific plan to get these people on board to help you market your product? Allison and Lorraine discuss who is and isn’t an influencer, and how to reach out to these critical word-of-mouth marketers.

While the big social networks of Facbook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google + get lots of attention, there is a vast "underground" or private internet that bypasses these platforms completely. Increasingly, we're seeing a shift away from the kind of mass broadcast social media that has dominated for so long toward a smaller, more intimate social experience. While this shift was lead by younger adults and teens, it is now spreading as all users are recognizing that not everyone needs to know everything about you. As a user, I think this healthy; as a business owner, it presents real challenges. If people are fleeing Facebook, how do you connect with them socially? This week, we talk about this growing trend, and how you as a business owner can stay one step head. In addition to the broadcast, check out Allison's blog post on the

For businesses which have formed in the era of the internet, we have grown accustomed to getting our tools for free.  But things are changing.  Innovative tech firms have discovered that building a sustainable business requires a revenue model built on finding ways to get users, visitors and community members to pay for some or all of the services they receive.    It is going to be more expensive for small businesses, but Lorraine and Allison are actually in favor of the decline of free software. Listen now to discover why