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The 24.Karat Mark.eter New.sletter
Bringing you a w.ealth of
o.pportunity
and kn/owledge to help you su.cceed!
http://24karatmarketer.com
February 24, 2005
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In this Issue
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$$ Top Sponsor Ad
$$ Table of Contents
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Publishers' Notes
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$$ Quote of The
Week
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$$ Feature Article - Small Business
Administration: A U.S.
Entrepreneur's Best Friend
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$$ 2nd Feature
Article - The Basics of Search Engine
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** Feature Article
----------------
Small Business Administration: A U.S. Entrepreneur's Best
Friend by Yank
Elliott, MBA & IAHBE Staff Writer
NOTE: This free article is being provided as a courtesy
from the IAHBE.
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The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is the federal
government
agency whose sole responsibility is helping you
succeed with your small
business. Many entrepreneurs have
heard about their loan packages, but are
you taking
advantage of the additional free information, resources,
and
even personal assistance they have to offer? These
people are paid to provide
assistance in every area of your
business. They are knowledgeable, and they
are glad to
help. All you need to do is ask.
Every politician in the entire country wants the U.S.
economy to thrive.
What better way than to support the
engine that drives this economy: small
business?
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), though always
ready to
help, used to be considered too complex for the
average small business. For
many years, only those
businesses with legal and accounting advisors
took
advantage of most programs.
The U.S. government is like any other lender: it wants to
be repaid. So
any loan program will have questions and
procedures some will consider
difficult and inhibiting, but
in just the last few years, the SBA has become
about as
friendly as any lender can be. They not only provide the
money to
operate your business but they also offer
counseling on a variety of problems
from start-up through
selling your business.
SBA Online
Other services can help you find customers or even products
to sell. And
the SBA Website is very user friendly. Just
look at
http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/.
Perhaps the first thing to strike you is the top center
flash block
calling attention to “Success Stories”. The
first one I caught was about
Premier Pet Products
http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/ss/ss11.html.
This business
was inspired by the rescue of a former racing
greyhound
about to be destroyed. The business flourished on a $5,000
loan
and was housed in the owner’s home.
Now Premier Pet Products is a $2.4 million company with
40
employees.
For ideas and inspiration everyone, would do well to go
through this
section and read how successful entrepreneurs
have used SBA services to help
them grow thriving
businesses.
The left sidebar has some powerful help for the
small
entrepreneur.
Among the “Hot Items” are these:
Because 97% of U.S. exporters are small businesses, the SBA
provides a
lot of aid in this sector. The SBA Office of
International Trade (
http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/oit/)
shows
where you can find regional and local offices for
personal assistance.
To locate new business connections, see PRO-Net
(
http://pro-net.sba.gov/). This site provides
many sources
of opportunity and help to obtain customers or clients
for
your business.
Startup Guide
(
http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/startup/guide.html)
shows
you exactly how to start, finance, operate, and find
customers for your small
business. It includes a list of
all kinds of support services you may need.
Here is all the
information you need to succeed.
The “Startup Kit” we discussed above covers every aspect of
running your
business. But wait!
The SBA has this material organized in a much more useful
manner at the
top of the right sidebar. The elements are
“Starting Your Business,”
“Financing Your Business,”
“Managing Your Business,” “Business
Opportunities,” and
“Disaster Recovery.”
How this arrangement helps is to group all the information
into related
areas. For example, under “Business
Opportunities,” there are sections
dealing with the basics,
rules, finding opportunities, size standards,
marketing,
proposals, small business programs, and special interests.
Each
section contains links to everything you might need to
clear up issues in the
group.
The Disaster Recovery section is one every entrepreneur
should study
right now and hope you never need it. The
writer has lived in North
Carolina’s Hurricane Alley for
many years. Recent disasters have included
Bertha, Fran,
Bonnie, Dennis, Floyd, and Isabel (the center went
directly
over our house). We have been most impressed by the
rapid
response of the SBA and FEMA (Federal Emergency
Management
Agency).
After the latest Isabel disaster, those who applied quickly
received aid
quickly, often in two or three days. Study
this section before you need it so
you can deal with
disaster to avoid greater loss.
Small business is so important politically and economically
that all
government will continue to push the SBA into more
areas of aid to
entrepreneurs. Visit
http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov/ as soon
as you can and see
how this agency can help you.
Be sure to peruse the information on Small Business Person
of the Year
awards throughout the U.S. to get ideas about
what you can do.
If they did it so can you!
Local Small Business Counseling
The SBA’s Small Business Development Program works
through centers
scattered throughout the country. From their
Website (
http://www.sba.gov/sbdc/), there is a link
for
locating a Small Business Development Center near you; they
are almost
always affiliated with a state college or
university.
Not only do the staff of these centers offer free business
counseling,
but they usually offer many mini-courses and a
well-stocked library on
everything from business entities
and business plans to taxes and technology
for your small
business. As your business grows, there may be a small
fee
charged, but initially the use of the center’s staff and
facilities
are free except for very reasonable costs for
the courses (well under
$100).
The advantage of using your closest local Small Business
Development
Center is that their staff will be the most
knowledgeable about local
business trends, marketing, laws,
and taxes that might affect your business.
They will also
know about local funding, financing, or other
assistance.
They will guide you through the process of writing a
business
plan and work with you as your business grows.
A visit to your closest Small Business Development Center
should be a
top priority for any home-based business owner,
even if all you do is
familiarize yourself with what they
have to offer.
The SBA is charged with stimulating the national economy by
promoting
small business, so take advantage of their
offerings and make your tax
dollars work for YOU for a
change!
RESOURCES
© Yank Elliott. All rights reserved worldwide.
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** 2nd Feature Article
----------------
The Basics of Search Engine Optimization by Jeff
McIntire-Strasburg,
Ph.D.
One means of making sure your site receives maximum
visibility is search
engine optimization (S.E.O.). You must
think in terms of search engine
optimization from the
earliest stages of planning and design if you want
to
receive heavy traffic from the major search engines. In
order to
optimize your site, you need to understand how
search engines work, how web
surfers search, and what
elements of your site contribute to successful
search
placement. While much information (and misinformation)
exists about
search engine optimization, experts agree that
the elements you must focus on
are keywords, meta tags
and
links from other sites.
How Search Engines Work
Before delving into specific elements, it’s necessary to
understand how
search engines work. True search engines
(as
opposed to directories like
Yahoo!) use a program called a
“robot” or “spider” to “crawl” the web while
gathering and
indexing the information they find. A searcher receives
the
results of these crawls when s/he conducts a search. Sounds
simple,
right? Unfortunately, every search engine (and
literally thousands of engines
exist) has its own criteria
for indexing sites, and further criteria for
determining
the ranking of sites. It’s easy to see why S.E.O.
consultants
can make a handsome living – it’s virtually
impossible for a single webmaster
to know all of the
various rules that will optimize his/her site for
every
engine.
Feeling Overwhelmed Yet?
While a search engine optimization consultant can provide a
greater
amount of detailed knowledge for an individual web
master, experts tend to
agree that there are a few rules
that almost anyone can apply to optimize
his/her site.
First, while thousands of search engines exist, most
surfers do their
searching on a handful of sites. Yahoo!
generally accounts for half of all
web searches. While they
charge a fee for simply considering a business
listing in
their directory (currently $299), many business people may
find
that a reasonable investment, considering the
popularity of this portal.
Among true search engines, the
most popular by far are Google and Overture.
It’s important
to know that many search engines actually get there
results
from these giants, so applying the rules that work for
these two
can help get your site listed in many engines.
Optimizing You Site
In order to make sure your site is listed in searches that
directly
apply to your type of business, it’s essential to
use the best keywords and
phrases. Keywords are the
words
that searchers use to find web sites that
will give them
the information they want. In order to take advantage
of
the power of keywords, you must find out what keywords
and
key
phrases are most popular among the searchers you want
to attract to your
site, so you may want to consider using
a service like Wordtracker (
http://www.wordtracker.com) to
find out
the words and phrases that searchers are using.
Once you’ve determined this,
you want to place those words
and phrases at the points in your page most
likely to be
noticed by search engines. Experts tend to agree that
the
best places to use keywords are in your page title, your
page’s copy,
and in the site’s meta tags.
The page title is likely the most important place to use
the proper
keywords, as all search engine spiders tend to
look at it. Precision is key –
use the keywords that are
most likely to bring the right visitors to that
particular
page. While some consultants suggest using many
key
words,
or many slight variations of key words, or repeated
key
words, search engines have caught on to these strategies
and may
actually penalize your site for using such tactics.
According to
Webmonkey.com’s Paul Boutin, it’s best not to
include extra words, such as a
company name; using only the
keywords as site title will generally bring the
best
results.
It’s also important to use those keywords and phrases in
the copy of the
page, as spiders do look at this also.
Note, for instance, how often I use
phrases like “search
engine opitimization” and “search engine” in this
article.
That’s deliberate. Keep in mind, though, that search
engines have
caught on to the practice of loading down copy
with keywords to achieve
higher rankings, and certain high
ratios of keywords to overall copy may
actually hurt your
placement.
The third place to use keywords is in the site’s meta tags,
which are
part of the coding for the page. Again, it’s best
to use only the words that
will bring the best results –
repetition or overuse of variations can hurt
your
optimization.
Finally, some consultants will suggest that regardless of
your site’s
content, you always include the most popular
overall keywords in your title
and meta tags. While this
may bring more initial traffic to your site, you
have to
consider whether attracting searches on “Eminem” or
“Spiderman”
will benefit you in any way. Generally, it’s
best to optimize your site so
that you attract those
searchers that would actually be interested in what
you
have to offer.
Link popularity
Another criteria that many search engines use for ranking
is link
popularity. Essentially, is your site linked from
other sites, and are those
sites ranked well in their
engines? This can be a time consuming process for
a
webmaster, as getting links on other pages generally
involves contacting
the owner of that page and asking for a
listing or agreeing to a “link swap”:
you put a link on
your page to their site, and they do the same for
you.
Again, don’t believe that you can fool the search engines
through
short-cut methods such as FFA pages, as the engine
administrators have caught
on to these, also. Also keep in
mind that links on other reputable pages
account for a high
percentage of traffic – you really can’t lose by
having
your site listed on other site’s “Links” pages.
Some Final Thoughts
When optimizing your site for the search engines, it’s also
important to
remember that a high ranking in a search
doesn’t necessarily mean more
qualified traffic. As in many
aspects of life, presentation is everything. If
the listing
on the search engine appears clear and professional,
you’re
more likely to receive more of the traffic that will
benefit you.
Boutin notes that the meta name field in the
coding is important in this
regard, as some engines use the
information in this field for their site
description. While
you want to use keywords and phrases in this field, do
so
in a manner that still will make sense to a surfer looking
for a site
like yours.
Ultimately, search engine optimization involves using tried
and true
methods of design and writing to make your site
user-friendly.
More information:
________________________________________________
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, Ph.D., is an English professor and
freelance
business writer. Need an ezine article, press
release, sales letter or other
written material for your
business? Contact Jeff at
mcintirj@lincolnu.edu
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