How Much Should I Spend on Adwords? Some Tips for Your Budget

Like most other things in business, answering the question how much should I spend on Adwords is a balancing act. With a budget that’s too small, your pay-per-click (PPC) campaign won’t receive enough traffic to be profitable. On the other hand, if you set aside too much for PPC, you won’t see a return on your investment because not enough people are searching for what you’re offering. Finding that magic number for your paid ad campaign can be difficult for the uninitiated, but with a little help, you can start fleshing out your budget today. Luckily, I’ve got a few …

Marketing Strategy 101: Why Your Small Business Needs a Marketing Plan

Your business needs clients to survive. A basic marketing strategy can give you a few leads, but without a comprehensive marketing plan, there are many pitfalls lying in wait for your business. Think of a marketing plan as a guide for goal setting that works with your overall business plan. Just like goals that you might set for personal growth, the goals that you set for your business’s marketing efforts are more likely to come to fruition if you write them down. Furthermore, you can (and should) tweak these goals as you gain more information on your journey as a …

Choosing a Domain? Here’s How to Choose a Website Name that Lasts!

Your website is your business’s online identity. When people want to learn more about your business, it’s one of the first things they check. Learning how to choose a website name that helps your business is one of the most important things you’ll have to do when setting up a website for your business. Like many of the other decisions that you have to make as a small business owner, picking a domain name that works to propel your business forward isn’t as cut-and-dried as it might seem. Many businesses have made costly mistakes because they didn’t take the time to …

No Facebook Advertising? What the Scandal Means for Your Business

You’ve no doubt heard about the most recent Facebook scandal. If you’re not paying for Facebook advertising, listen up. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook creator and CEO, recently wrote a post detailing what exactly happened and apologized, saying that “[Facebook has] a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you. I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” Many thought that this response, posted five days after news media started reporting on it, fell way short of rebuilding public trust to remedy the situation for …

Thought Leadership Strategy: How to Influence in 4 Steps

A thought leader is someone who uses their expertise in a given field to help others. But it’s also more complicated than that—having a good thought leadership strategy doesn’t mean you can just decide one day that you are a thought leader because you know a lot about your craft. You must first gain credibility with your audience. You have to be considered a solid source of information within your business niche. The way things used to be before the internet gave everyone a platform if they wanted one, thought leaders had to publish in trade magazines and speak at …

Should I Continue To Use Facebook For My Small Business?

This is the question many small business owners have been asking regarding their presence on Facebook in light of the recent scandal. Last Friday, Facebook came under intense scrutiny regarding the unauthorized sharing of 50 million users’ data  with Cambridge Analytica – a political data analysis firm. Since the announcement, people and businesses across the globe have shown great concern  about their online security and privacy – and a small subset have opted to delete their Facebook accounts. We understand the magnitude and importance of this issue and wanted to share some perspective about the news. As a business owner, …