Small Business Shift

There are a bunch of websites and consultants advising that companies skip a website in favor of a Facebook Page. But it’s a really bad idea. You should have a Facebook Page, and a basic one can be put together in just a few minutes. But this can’t substitute for your real home on the […]

The following is a guest post from Carol Wilson. Web 2.0 has enabled millions of consumers to communicate on a grassroots level that has helped small companies tremendously. At the same time, however, not enough small businesses leverage the power of being small. Here are a few tips: 1. Reach as many customers as you can through […]

Web.com is a fast-growing (publicly traded:WWWW) behemoth in the small business web host/design/market space. About a year ago the company purchased Register.com (roughly doubling its size), and a few days ago it bought Network Solutions (tripling it on top of the previous acquisition). Coincidentally, a critical piece was written at Mike Blumenthal’s local search blog regarding a Register.com […]

Is the information on your website out of date? Are you unsure how to create a blog? Do you not display prices because they might change? Then you could probably benefit from one feature every website should have. You need a website that can be easily updated, even by someone with no technical skill. Why […]

Time for a first website, or a redesign? I hear far too many stories of website projects gone wrong – and even among those that finish, plenty of small business sites are lacking key features, such as good photos of their company. Sometimes the problem is just poor preparation. Take these three steps before seeking […]

When you search on Google for something that may be local (a restaurant, dentist, or plumber, for instance), the search engine returns a combination of regular and local results. About a year ago, these were always clearly separate, but have since become less easily distinguished. What’s interesting is that it wasn’t just the display that […]

I posted yesterday that Google released an update to Google Maps for Android. What struck me about the update was that the very first bullet in their list of features for the app is the ability to upload photos for Places. This, coming right after the desktop Google Places update that also prioritized an “upload […]

While finishing my MBA, I took a class that traveled to India. One of the people we met with there was an exec at a large outsourcing firm, who was asked by another student on the trip what was the smallest project they’ll take on. He said that: … for BPO (business process outsourcing) projects […]

Yesterday Google announced changes to Google Places Pages. I posted a quick note in my Around The Web section at the time, but would like to dive into it a bit deeper and provide some analysis as well. What’s Changed On Google Places The Place Pages We’ll start at the top (orange edits are mine): A […]

As the yellow pages slowly die off, phone book companies are increasingly pushing the Internet versions of their books – both to searchers and to small business ad buyers. Which, for a small business, begs the question: is it worth buying advertising in the Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)? Consumers & Internet Yellow Pages A recent […]