Small Business Shift

Many large websites increase sales by providing a live chat feature right on their website. This can also be effective for small companies – and a variety of providers make easy live chat software for this very purpose.

There are a variety of website builders that let you create a free website. Most people will struggle to create a great site – but for ultra-small companies, there may be no other choice. This guide is for you.

Just this week, a startup called Square launched its iPhone and Android applications. Square looks to make a big difference for small businesses, by enabling the acceptance of credit card payments directly on a cell phone.

Google allows you to use it’s world-leading email program, gmail, on your own domain ([email protected]). This is the best business email setup available for small companies.

WordPress is the back-end software that powers millions of websites. It provides a simple, email-like interface for adding or editing content, but also provides the flexibility required by designers and web pros. When your business gets a new website, I think you should insist that it be built in WordPress.

Updated 8/4/2010. In my small business online marketing guide, I mentioned that the #1 way to start promoting your company online is to claim its local listing on the search engines. For Google, this means setting up your Google Places page.

Google recently introduced remarketing on its Adwords platform. This is great for small businesses, as it provides easy access to a marketing strategy big companies have been using for several years – and that can provide tremendous results. (Just because this is accessible to small companies does not mean it’s where you should start. There […]

Stamps.com is an online postage printing service. The company provides a software program that allows you to print customized stamps directly onto your envelope. In addition to this convenience, there are a number of other benefits to the system:

I was looking at some local searches, and came across a results page that looks odd. Searching dentist minneapolis mn brings up this page on Google:

There are some people who think so. I can see why – but they’re not. Still, they’ve got issues, which I’m going to explore here… I was reading a series of comments regarding Yext over at Local SEO Guide, and think they are bringing up some interesting points. People are discussing Yext specifically, but a lot of […]