August 31, 2004
The small business forum contains sections for business and legal questions, software announcements, on and offline marketing and a section for user groups to connect with software developers. Post your requests or join into the discussions!

August 30, 2004
Pay per click advertising has proven itself as a great method for advertising. Since its inception savy online businesses have implemented complicated sales tracking methods. As a result the pay-per-click model has increased in popularity, forcing advertisers to pay more per click. If you are looking for inexpensive pay-per-click words consider bidding on misspellings of your highest performing phrases and words!

August 28, 2004
The U.S. Department of Justice has targeted a group known as the Underground Network for its first criminal investigation into intellectual property piracy over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

During a media briefing Wednesday, Attorney General John Ashcroft said "virtually every kind of software, game, movie and music was available for illegal downloading and distribution on these networks, from computer games and music that would cost as much as $18 to $35 dollars if purchased legitimately, to specialized software that has a retail cost in excess of $1,000."

Ashcroft authorized search warrants Wednesday morning involving an Internet service provider and five individuals in Texas, New York and Wisconsin. Computers, software and computer-related equipment were confiscated in the raids. No charges have been filed. more

August 27, 2004
Buyers guides are a great source of longterm exposure. Buyers Guides are excellent, yet underused promotional vehicles. A number of different industries produce annual or semi-annual Buyer Guides to assist their readers in finding products that may interest them. Typically these guides offer a generic free listing or upgraded listings for a fee. Buyer Guides tend to have a long shelf life and can generate long term traffic. Check out the following list of Buyers Guides!

August 26, 2004
If you have an online forum make sure that it can be spidered by the search engines. Forums are content rich and will likely bring visitors interested in your products or services. PHPbb has a "modification" that will ensure that PHPbb forums can be spidered. Check the manufacturer of your web board to see if they have similar modifications available.

August 25, 2004
Wall Street Startup Journal - The last word on starting a business and entrepreneurial issues from The Wall Street Journal. Read powerful content and search a database of thousands of business for sale.

August 24, 2004
What is an Acceptable Response?
Some small businesses are afraid to reply to customer queries off-hours, fearful that the message time-stamp will betray them as a small business. The Internet however is timeless. The fact is customers appreciate a quick response.

August 23, 2004
The US overtime labor laws were recently overhauled. The significant changes to the laws which have not been updated for 50 years will impact more than 6 million Americans.

The new rules include overtime pay guarantees for all workers earning $23,660 annually or less, covering more workers than the $22,100 salary bar the Bush administration initially proposed last year -- drawing heavy fire from critics. The Fair Labor Standards Act currently guarantees overtime for those earning $8,060 or less.

The new rules, which take effect Aug. 23, also exempt from overtime pay all employees earning $100,000 or more, if they meet certain tests, while the earlier proposed rules set that threshold at $65,000.

August 22, 2004
Google has released a beta version of Google Groups (formerly Deja). Google Groups is a free service which helps groups of people communicate effectively using email and the Web. Every group has a home page hosted by Google where members can start new discussions or reply to older topics. Every group also has its own email address to help its members stay in touch with each other. Members can read and search all public Google Groups content, including more than 845 million postings from the Usenet bulletin board service, dating back to 1981.

Every group has its own Google-fast search, making it easy to find discussions locked away deep in your group's archive. This new version of Google Groups lets you easily create your own announcement lists, mailing lists and public discussions in just minutes. The new Google Groups also makes it easier to read and participate in discussions. All the replies to an initial post are now gathered on one page. You can bookmark topics you're interested in, and have new replies to that topic delivered to your inbox.

The downside.... I can't figure out how to have content viewed based on the date!

August 21, 2004
Kanoodle said yesterday that it struck a distribution deal with news aggregator Feedster to sprinkle paid listings in Feedster's feeds of search results.

The deal expands the reach of Kanoodle's content listings program, called ContextTarget. Kanoodle also distributes its content listings to partners such as CBS MarketWatch and MSNBC.com.

Feedster, San Francisco, which indexes more than 8,000 news sources, lets users have their searches sent to them through the Really Simple Syndication feed. Feedster already displays paid search listings on its Web site through Yahoo's Overture Services. Its search feeds will include Kanoodle's ContextTarget listings labeled as advertisements.

Feedster will offer its users the option of paying $10 per year, via PayPal, to receive an ad-free RSS feed.

August 20, 2004
Phrase and Broad match types help you attract more customers by displaying your listings for a wider variety of relevant searches on Web sites. Overture recently announced that Yahoo! now displays Phrase match type ads. AskJeeves has announced that their paid inclusion program will only be available until September 30, 2004.

August 19, 2004
Not to be confused with the recent Understanding Google AdSense article, the Understanding Google AdWords article details implementing Google AdWords as an advertiser. Unlike many search engines Google, to its credit, clearly denotes search listings that are paid placement. In fact, Google AdWords appear in a separate section down the left side of the screen. Google AdWords provide an inexpensive advertising venue for businesses to advertise products or services to a targeted audience. Advertisers have the ability to control their budget, target their advertising based on keywords. Advertisers are also free to determine the ad contents. Google AdWords allow for nearly instant traffic, which can be turned on and off. Traffic results can be measured, providing information on what is successful, what isn't and what needs to be changed. AdWords can be found that work by running a test campaign.

August 18, 2004
reBlog facilitates the process of filtering and republishing relevant content from many RSS feeds. reBloggers subscribe to their favorite feeds, preview the content, and select their favorite posts. These posts are automatically published through their favorite blogging software.

Why should you reBlog? reBlogs are useful to individuals who want to maintain a weblog but prefer curating content to writing original posts. They can also enable organizations to tap the contributions of their employees, members, and communities-at-large in order to easily redistribute relevant content.

August 17, 2004
Web logs are critical to determining what advertising is working! All webmasters should take the time to analyze their monthly web logs. If the web host does not provide a program or interface that allows for the information to easily be interpreted then a 3rd party program should be used to parse the information. The raw information can be converted into data that will show the number of unique web visitors, the top referring sites, the length of time a visitor spends on each page, site entry pages along with a myriad of other information that can assist in making intelligent marketing decisions.

August 16, 2004
Google has an image search function that many webmasters are not aware of, copyrights should still however be respected. If you wish to use an image you must purchase the rights to that photo. Suggested sources for royalty free photos and graphics can be found at ClipArt.com and Photo Secrets .

August 13, 2004
Marketing a corporate brand or a branded product demands proactive brand management. Great brands don't just happen, they take strategic planning and time. Brand attributes are more than just a certain look or logo, a brand attribute are the qualities that a marketer tries to create and maintain. When defining your brand it is important to distinguish your product/service from others in the industry. Is it a quality standard, value add, strong customer service?
more on branding

August 12, 2004
Search Engine Optimization Tools - SEO Tools resource, free SEO tools to help with your online SEO efforts.

Check your SERPS (Search engine results pages) in multiple engines just by clicking on my Free Serps tool. Covers Yahoo, Google, All The Web. MSN and Hotbot.

Keyword + Pagerank Finder - This tool is used for finding all websites with a certain Google pagerank value that are ranking for a specific keyword.

Keyword Density Search Engine Spider Simulator - Check your keyword density with your Spider Simulator.

Google Datacenter Tool - Works just like the MCdar or Google Dance tools of the past, however unlike the now defunct Google Dance this tool works VIA IP not domain alias.

Link Popularity Tool - Check your Link popularity (Backlinks) in Google, All The Web, AltaVista, HotBot, and MSN. Enter your competitors URL's to see how you stack up!

Keyword Density Tool - Check your keyword density with our search engine spider simulator.

Yahoo Rank Checker - Use this free SEO Tool to check your rankings on YAhoo for a particular keyword phrase. Works a lot like the Google rankings tool but does a screen scrape on yahoo.

Search Engine Saturation Tool - Search engine Saturation is basically a measure of how many pages you have within a search engines index. Find out how many pages you have listed in the major search engines.

August 11, 2004
Google and Yahoo announced today that they have resolved two contentious issues between the companies. Under the terms of the agreement, Google will license U.S. Patent No. 6,269,361 and several related patents, held by Yahoo!'s wholly-owned subsidiary, Overture. Yahoo! also dismissed its patent lawsuit against Google. The lawsuit was originally filed in April 2002 by Overture, alleging infringement on Overture's patent on bid for placement search ranking and account management tools. The two companies have also resolved a dispute regarding shares issuable to Yahoo! related to a 2000 services agreement. To resolve the dispute, Google issued an undisclosed number of shares of its Class A common stock to Yahoo!.

August 10, 2004
Google AdSense allows webmasters to dynamically serve content relevant advertisements on web pages. If the visitor clicks one of the AdSense ads served to the website, the website owner is credited for the referral. Google's AdSense program essentially allows approved websites to dynamically serve Google's pay-per-click AdWord results. more on Google AdSense

August 9, 2004
According to the Gmail terms of use, Google reserves the right to terminate services "at any time for any reason" and also may "monitor, edit or disclose your personal information including the content of your emails if required to do so in order to comply with any valid legal process or government request". Clearly Google is not marketing their services to businesses who rely on their email.

August 7, 2004 - August 8, 2004
I've recently heard horror stories of businesses outsourcing services and being dissatisfied with the results. Many small businesses fail to realize that in order to grow their business they may need to outsource.

Tips for outsourcing:
1.) be clear about expectations, additional preparation and explanations will go a long way.
2.) realize that no one is ever going to do someting exactly the same way that you do, but sometimes done is good enough.
3.) check references
4.) have realistic expectations and time frames
5.) anticipate there will be a learning curve

August 6, 2004
Ever wonder whether or not your business shares any characteristics of Inc. 500 winners? Take this interactive survey to find out.

New "reblogging" technology facilitates the process of filtering and republishing relevant content from many RSS feeds. reBloggers subscribe to their favorite feeds, preview the content, and select their favorite posts. These posts are automatically published through their favorite blogging software.

August 5, 2004
A really great thread in Software Marketing forum introduced a discussion about small businesses and public relations. The post mentionedd a number of items that a small company can do to generate good PR. The items discussed range from sponsoring local youth sports teams to donate a percentage of profits to charities. The value of good PR is often lost on small business owners, and really is something that ought to be considered when discussing a business plan.

August 4, 2004
NewsAlerts - Google News Alerts are sent by email when news articles appear online that match the topics you specify. Some handy uses of Google News Alerts include: monitoring a developing news story, keeping current on a competitor or industry or even keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams.

WebAlerts - Google Web Alerts are sent by email when there is new information on the web matching the search you specify. Some handy uses of Google Web Alerts include: keeping current on a competitor or industry, monitoring references to your name or company, finding out when people link to your site, discovering new websites on a certain topic

August 3, 2004
Find copies of your content on the Web. You can use Copyscape to identify sites that have copied your content without permission. Copyscape will also show you who is quoting your site. Simply type in the URL of your original content, and Copyscape does the rest.

August 2, 2004
As the web has become more crowded webmasters have been striving to provide fresh and up to date content for their website visitors. Many webmasters have discovered they can easily utilize the information in RSS feeds to provide fresh web content.
Find out ... What Are RSS Feeds ?

July 31, 2004 - August 1, 2004
A Google spokeswoman confirmed that www.ipo.google.com had gone live, where bidders can apply to get an identification number to participate in the so-called Dutch auction. The auction process is designed to put small retail investors on a more equal footing with the big institutional funds and influential investors who have traditionally been given better access.

Top Web search engine Google Inc. began taking bids on Friday for the public auction process it will use to sell as much as $3.3 billion in shares to the public for its planned offering in mid-August. more on Google IPO