Internet Guide for Small Business

WordPress 2.9.1 has been released

Time marches on and so does the gang at Automatic. Matt Mullenweg and the rest of the team have released a new version of WordPress. Simply log into your dashboard and choose the automatic update option.

You have to love WordPress, more power and more elegance in its design with each iteration. I love the automatic updates to the core program and the plugins. Really cool.

Affiliate Marketing – Can You Make Any Money?

Can you make money in affiliate marketing?

The short answer is yes you can.

Is it easy?  – decidedly not.

We just posted an article addressing the pitfalls of Affiliate Marketing on SBOguide.com. If you are considering throwing your proverbial hat in the ring and giving affiliate marketing a go, I think you’ll find the article timely.

Check out this and other articles aimed at giving the small business owner a fighting chance on the Internet at SBOguide.com.

Survive These Tough Times By Embracing Internet Techology

Survive These Tough Times By Embracing Internet Technology.

It has always been important for small business owner’s to manage their budgets, but the current economics situation is beginning to take its toll on the bottom line of even the heartiest of businesses.

So what’s a small business owner to do?

An obvious first step is to look at transportation and travel costs. How many of your business trips could be avoided by using internet technology? With the help of Internet conferencing tools such as those offered by Skype, it’s possible to reduce, if not completely eliminate, the need to travel to accomplish things like product demonstrations, training, sales presentations, and most other reasons for face to face meetings.

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Will The Real Gurus Please Stand Up

Ever since I started the Small Business Internet Guide and the associated website, I’ve been looking for ways to make them more useful, increase readership, and in general provide a better service to small business owners. After all, we’re all looking to use the power of the Internet to improve the performance of our small business or professional service.

So naturally, like most business owners, I frequently search the Internet for new ideas and tools that might help me accomplish that goal. Increasingly, no search is required as these offers magically find their way into my inbox.

What you will find when you start searching the Internet looking for that kind of information is a growing army of gurus, some I suspect real and some self-professed, that are willing to offer you advice – usually free or of little cost to start, then increasingly expensive to continue on for the “good stuff”.

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How To Add YouTube Video To Your Blog

Interested in learning an easy way to add videos from YouTube to your blog? Follow along and I’ll make the process as painless as possible.

Let’s insert a video of Leona Lewis, the winner of the British version of American Idol – the X Factor, singing “Over The Rainbow”. A song, by the way, that really shows off Leona’s impressive vocal chops.

(Note: We’re using Leona’s video in this example, but if you’re running a business and have a message you want to publicize, this could just as easily be a video you’ve uploaded to YouTube.)

First – Locate the video on YouTube that you would like to insert into your Wordpress post (the video I’m inserting in this example is located here). When you reach the YouTube page, look to the right of the video. You will notice a box that contains a URL, and below it another that contains an Embed box.

Next to the Embed box is a blue star (the customize button). Select the star to display the customize options. I chose the following options: to not display related videos, to display a grey/blue color scheme, a window size of 480 by 385 pixels, and to not display a border around the video.

YouTube Setup Screen

Once you make these selections, select the code that appears inside the Imbed box. then copy and paste it into your Wordpress post using the HTML option. Use “Preview this Post” to view the results prior to publishing. If you’re not happy with the results, you can go back to the YouTube site, change your customization options and repeat the process.

These simple steps will allow you to display a YouTube video on your own blog.

I’ll cover video modifications in a future post, until then practice what you’ve just learned and let me know if you have any questions.

Small Buisness Guide Empowers Owners

The Small Business Internet Guide

While small business owners obviously lack the resources of large corporations, by using Internet technology it’s still possible for small business owners to level the playing field and compete successfully.

This is the guiding premise of SBOguide.com – with the knowledge of how to use Internet resources, small business owners are able to market, service, and deliver products and services to anywhere on the planet the Internet reaches.

Basic Internet technologies allow small businesses to send email, establish a website, conduct web based seminars and product demonstrations, syndicate podcasts and vidcasts, and use auto responders to connect with customers on a 24/7 basis.

SBOguide.com was created to provide a guide for small business owners to improve their use the Internet to grow their small business.

Arm your small business with the knowledge to succeed. Visit SBOguide.com today.

High Oil Prices – Presdential Candidates Speak Out

We just had our primary in Indiana yesterday, and although the race here was very close on the Democratic side, the Republican outcome was I suppose a forgone conclusion.

What I found interesting was the the fact that some candidates thought the way to counter the high price of fuel was to temporarily suspend the Federal tax on gasoline. While that might seem like a good idea to some, people that are suggesting this overlook why those taxes were put there in the first place. Among other things, they support our infrastructure of roads, bridges and tunnels. As anyone traveling today can attest, this is something we can scarcely afford to neglect by cutting the taxes that pay for it.

The problem with high oil prices is related to supply, demand, and of course corporate and international politics. None of these problems are going to be solved in the short term. Dropping the Federal tax, even temporarily is not the solution, and according to the economists I’ve read, would save the average person very little anyway. We need real leadership to solve these issues, something that seems to be sorely missing for the most part in Congress.

Lee Iaccoca has just written Where Have All The Leaders Gone, a thought provoking book about the sad state of political and industrial leadership in our country. I suggest there is something in this piece that we as small business owners can learn from as well. I especially like his nine C’s of leadership (curiosity, courage, creative, communicate, character, conviction, charisma, competent, and common sense). These are fine qualities to develop in yourself as a small business owner, and just as importantly, a good yardstick against which to measure the candidates in the Fall election.

Well, all of this concern over oil prices brings me back to brainstorming about what small business owners can do to reduce the amount of energy they consume. The judicious use of Internet technology offers some helpful solutions – one based on lowering expenses by reducing the need to travel (as discussed in another post). But there must be many others? Becoming more politically active might be a good thing to consider as well.

I welcome any comments that might be offered on how your small business is dealing with the rising cost of oil.

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