Small Business Center

In order to provide users with the absolute most relevant search results, Google is doing its best to provide a more local, a more social results page. The days where location doesn’t matter on the Web are over. Over the past year we’ve seen a strong push from Google to improve results by showing users what’s located closest to their neighborhood, be it a physical neighborhood or simply the neighborhood where they “hang out” on the Web. First they began automatically personalizing results by IP, then it was real-time and social signals. And they’re not slowing down.

Let’s look at two new advancements made by Google last week and how it may affect small business owners.

More Local

On Friday afternoon Google launched ‘Nearby’ search option. The new feature will allow users to filter their search results based on a geographic location that they can set instead of appending location names directly to their search. For example, many users have grown accustomed to performing searches like [New York City pizza] or [Denver plumber] in order to receive local results. Now they don’t have to. Instead, searchers will be able to refine their search by their default location or a custom one by using the Search Options panel that appears on the left hand sidebar. It, arguably, makes search easier.

The feature is live on the google.com domain but if you’re not seeing it, Google has pre-defined some searches for people to test out.

For example, Google listed the following search examples:

[things to do on st. patrick's day] – In the Minneapolis region
[food blogs] – Near you
[farmers market] – Near the city of Ithaca
[dmv] – In the same state as Tucson

More Social

Back in December Google announced it would integrate real-time search into its search results. The change instantly put live news, tweets, and blog posts directly into the search results and gave small business owners yet another reason to be proactive about monitoring their online reputation. Well, last week Google added another prominent source to pull content from and display in its real-time search results – Facebook. While Google won’t be pulling information from your individual profile, it will publish official updates from Facebook Fan Pages, profiles generally created for celebrities, major brands and, of course, local businesses.

This is a pretty cool new addition from Google because it gives small business owners another way to dominate the search results for their name. And because Facebook will only pull updates that the owner of the page creates themselves, there’s less of an online reputation management headache to worry about. You control what Google may or may not see about you. You can make sure that customers find out about special deals, events, and whatever’s going on at your business.

What Does All This Mean?

It means you need to start thinking differently about how you market your site. It used to be that location didn’t matter. Google ranked sites based on the relevance to a particular keyword or phrase. More and more we’re starting to see Google giving more prominence to information that is relevant based on other factors.

Local is more relevant. You need to ensure that Google knows where you’re business is located. That means getting the proper local citations, making sure your Local Business Listing is accurate and that you localize your Web content by using a complete address.

Social is more relevant. If you haven’t created a Facebook Fan page for your business, now’s the time to do it. Google is pulling this information into the search results and using it when someone searches for you. Use this to your advantage. Make sure you’re sending out valuable information and that you’re also letting them find a profile that is well-built and user-friendly. We’ve previously shared tips on how to get the most from Facebook Fan pages and how to get people to join your Facebook Fan page, which may be worth another read. With Google consistently turning up the social knob and updating its idea of relevance, you need to make sure your relevant in 2010’s version of search.

Our daily roundup of today’s headlines about small businesses….  Tracking what people are talking about today in the world of small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Credit

• Jeff Cornwall. Current Small Business Problems Will Not be Solved Solely by Focusing on Lending, Says Report. The Entrepreneurial Mind
• Martha C. White. Obama Administration’s Small Business Loans: Will They Really Work? The Minnesota Independent
• Phyllis Furman. Loans Remain Tough for Small Business, Startups. NYDaily News
• Paul Davidson. Credit Unions Want Congress to Lift Limits on Small Business Lending — But There are Two Sides to That Story. USA Today

Healthcare

• Samuel Gregg. Why More Regulation Probably Won’t Save the Economy. National Review Online
• NFIB. Small Business Owners Want Less Political Drama Over Healthcare, More Solutions.  NFIB.com
• The Cato Institute. Why a Free Market Can Cure the Health Care Crisis. Healthcare.Cato.Org
• The Quincy Cove. Small Businesses Interviewed About High Insurance Costs. Quincycove.com

Hiring

• Intuit. Small Business Shows Signs of an Economic Rebound. Small Business Trends
• Scott Shane. But Hiring Has Not Bounced Back According to the Discover Small Business Watch.  Small Business Trends

Marketing

• Niccolinas Soto. Capitalizing on Social Media: A How-To Guide. Smallbiz Central
• John Janstch. Standing Out with — of All Things – Rockabilly.   Duct Tape Marketing
• Becky McCray. How to Track Your Daily Marketing Activity. Small Biz Survival
• Martin Lindeskog. A Great Big List of 100 Small Business Podcasts.  Small Business Trends Radio
  

Tech

• Steven Andrés. Big Fish or Small-Fry, Don’t Wind Up on a Hacker’s Hook. NetWorkWorldAsia.net
• Financial Web. Small Business Accounting Programs Can Create a Simpler Life. Internet Brands
• Hewlett Packard. Elite 7100 Small Business Desktop Increases Productivity. Small Business Trends

Operations

• Seth Godin. I Don’t Feel Like It. Inspiration for the Business Leader. Seth’s Blog
• U.S. government. Business.gov Collects 2010  Small-Business Tax Information in One Handy Place.  Business.gov

Startups

• Adam Toren. Too Much on Your Plate Can Kill Your Startup (and So Can 4 Other Things). YoungEntrepreneur.com
• Dharmesh Shah. The 10 Most Tempting Software Startup Categories. On Startups.

Learn more about what’s important to your small business today. Here is our latest roundup of the news articles and blogs we’re reading and what’s important, from Small Business Trends.

Policy

Will small business really be better off with another layer of government regulation? Some small businesses have come out in support of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes. Entrepreneur.com

The road to patent reform runs through the Eastern District of Texas. VC investor Brad Feld runs this op ed about patent litigation in the U.S. and how it could strangle innovative small to medium sized businesses. Feld Thoughts

Employer-provided health insurance remains in proposal.  Excerpts from President Obama’s  remarks on his health care program today.  “The proposal I’ve put forward … builds on the current system where most Americans get their health insurance from their employer.” National Review Online

Tech

Want to know how other small businesses are using social media? Here’s a cool graph with stats and some other information. Mashable

Some things are just too good to be true. Free hosted phone service for your small business may be one of them. Be sure the company will still be around when you need them. SmallBizTechnology.com

Credit

The problem with small business – is it really lack of credit? In this interview, Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) insists he was told by one small business owner that lack of customers or sales was not the problem but only lack of credit due to lack of capital in the banking industry. How many small business owners would agree? TalkRadioNews.com

What do you need to buy a business? Before you even think about trying to secure a loan or other financing here are some things you may need to consider. Business.gov

Marketing

So, what do those little stars next to some Google search results mean? They may be an important factor in your Website’s positioning in the future and an important consideration when marketing your presence online. Wayne Liew Dot Com

New Hampshire small businesses are bucking a trend and exceeding the national average in exporting overseas. How that state’s small to medium sized companies are fostering growth and how other entrepreneurs can imitate their success at marketing abroad. NashuaTelegraph.com

What marketers really can’t stand about advertising agencies. Lack of communications, industry knowledge and insight into clients’ needs top the list in this report. American Association of Advertising Agencies

Who are you following on social media? If you’re just checking your own brand, you may be missing the boat. BetterCloser.com

Operations

Small business payrolls showed a 2% increase in hiring and slightly larger paychecks. From the SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard for February 2010. Data based on thousands of small business payrolls. SurePayroll.com

Despite the best laid plans, your product or service will someday fall short of customer expectations. Roger Breisch, Executive Director at the Batavia, Illinois Chamber of Commerce draws on 25 years of business experience  about when the worst happens. Oops…There Goes My Worldview

What if there were a simple and complete guide on how to keep your customers happy? You’re in luck! Ken Beaulieu has seven tips that should keep customers and clients sticking to you like glue. FuelNet.com

Steer clear of the usual tax preparation pitfalls by keeping good records. Tips from the Associated Press to keep your business out of trouble at tax time. Associated Press

The secret to turning your business into one you can sell. John Warrillow draws on his experiences building his business, which he sold a few years ago. Small Business Trends

One frustration I hear from a lot of small business bloggers is that they feel like no one’s reading. They see the big subscription numbers of pros like Darren Rowse or Brian Clark and they’re discouraged that their numbers are just nearly breaking into the hundreds. And then they stop blogging completely. Because, if only 100 or so people are reading your blog, what’s the point?

The point is the 100 people!

As a local business, you don’t need to become the biggest, most well-read blog on the Internet. You just need to connect with your audience and the people on the Web who could become customers. If you’re a local hardware shop in Detroit, Michigan and you’re able to connect with100 people who live in your area – that’s a pretty significant number. There are lots of benefits to being a ‘small-time’ small business blogger. Here are a few more.

More Intimate

Yeah, so you’re probably never going to have the readership that Darren Rowse has at Problogger, but a smaller audience allows you to really get to know the people who are in your community. You get a better understanding of what your customers want, who they are and you can form real relationships with them in a way that bigger bloggers have a difficult time doing. You can reach out to the person who comments regularly on their blog and get to know them on a more personal level. You may even be able to tie the online person with the real-life customer so that you’re better able to target them. Playing to a packed stadium may feel great, but it’s those coffee shop environments that introduce you to your real fans.

More Engaged

At my other blog Outspoken Media last week I encouraged all the lurkers to leave a comment and tell me why they lurk instead of participating and how I could help bring them into the conversation. The response I received from people who had never commented before was amazing. And while reading over their replies, I noticed that many feared commenting on posts that had tons of comments or where they didn’t feel a connection with the blogger and the audience. They were looking for a place where (a) their comment would be heard and (b) a place they could establish a connection. Niche small business blogs are where many commenters enjoy hanging out. It allows them to get to know the blogger and really feel part of the community. Rather than feel like an anonymous person, now they know their voice will be heard and they feel more invested.

Better Signal

Having a smaller audience that you can get to know allows you to target content directly to their needs. There’s no trying to please a bunch of people who will never impact your business – you only have to worry about being useful to your customers. You can write content specifically designed to answer questions they’ve asked, respond to trends you’re seeing, and really talk to the people who matter to your company. It’s a lot easier to get to know your community when it’s made up of tens of dozens instead of tens of thousands. And the matter you know them, the more relevant content that you can create. Content that will get them off your blog and into your store.

As a struggling blogger, I know it’s hard to see the A-listers with their tens of thousands of readers, but for a small business, getting the attention of 100 of your most interested customers is nothing to turn your nose at. Imagine if you had 100 people in your store asking you product questions. Your blog is your customer service desk on the Web.

A couple of weeks back I raved about Google Alerts and all the different ways that I used them. I mentioned that I use them to track keywords, identify content theft and even to track links coming into a site. I look at Google Alerts as a great multi-purpose tool that can help you track lots of different things. However, when you’re serious about finding a tool to monitor your social media presence, Trackur is where Google Alerts go to grow up and one that SMB owners should really be aware of.

You may remember that I interviewed search expert Andy Beal about Trackur back in September and he chatted about the importance of protecting your brand as a SMB owner, what to track and how his tool Trackur could help. Well, last week Trackur released a free tool for SMB owners that I thought was worth mentioning sharing.

The new tool is called Trackur Free and the functionality is the same as you’d find in a paid Trackur subscription. With it, you can set up a search and Trackur will look for mentions in traditional and social media, scouring through mainstream sources, blogs, tweets, images, videos, etc and deliver you the results via the Trackur dashboard, RSS, email or CSV export. What separates Trackur Free from the paid product is that you can only track one keyword. That said, if you’re a small business owner who’s already using Google Alerts for the “other stuff”, it may be worth using Trackur to keep an eye on that one money term that you’re really focused on. Where Trackur Free trumps a simple Google Alert is that it runs every 30 minutes and graphs mentions over time so that you can easily see if buzz is growing and how sentiment is changing. As I mentioned, it’s a bit more mature than a simple Google Alert.

Personally, I like the idea of using Trackur as your “specialty” tool and Google Alerts to pick up the easier to find stuff or terms you’re just casually monitoring. I use Google Alerts like a fire hose to give me lots of different information in different areas, Trackur is considerably more refined.

Worth noting is that Andy has chosen to make the tool retroactive. So if you read our interview back in September and signed up for a free trial, your account has already been moved over and you can start using it. If not, you can sign up for a free trial to give it a look. If you’ve resisted because of the associated price tag, now’s your chance to look under the hood. The importance of knowing what people are saying about your brand is not going to diminish anytime soon. In fact, it’s only getting stronger.

From computers and printers to scanners and copiers, businesses rely on electronics galore these days. But when it’s time to replace all this equipment, it’s not always clear what to do with it.

Throwing away old office electronics hurts the environment, and is banned in many communities. They often contain hazardous materials, such as mercury, lead and arsenic, that can become toxic waste in landfills and leach into the soil. The best solution is giving them away or recycling them. (Make sure the equipment is cleared of sensitive business information before doing anything with it.)

A noble start is seeing if you can donate your old equipment to a nonprofit. Many organizations, including Goodwill Industries, ILoveSchools and the Salvation Army, accept office equipment that they can resell at low prices or give to people in need. It costs you nothing, and you may even qualify for a tax deduction. (It’s a good idea to call ahead: Demand for various types of equipment changes over time, and some nonprofits may not currently take certain types of equipment.)

If you’re unsure of where to give, check out Great Nonprofits. It keeps a list of nonprofits currently in need of various types of office equipment and furniture.

Some Web sites, such as Free Cycle, also can match you up with individuals seeking computers or other equipment. But you won’t qualify for a tax deduction.

If donating or reselling isn’t feasible, recycling old equipment is the next best thing. Recyclers dismantle and harvest old equipment for parts that can be reused or resold. But there’s growing concern about some questionable practices among some electronics recyclers, so do a little research before you select one.

Many electronics manufacturers and dealers, including Apple and Office Depot, offer “mailback” or other such programs that allow businesses to give back used electronics, sometimes free or for a fee of less than $40 per item. You can find lists of electronics recyclers in your area on My Green Electronics and on E-cycling Central.  Local environmental groups may also provide good information on recycling options and practices in your community.

Keep in mind that many environmentally responsible recyclers often charge small per-item fees for their service.

Learn more about what’s important to your small business today. Here is our latest roundup of the news articles and blogswe’re reading and what’s important, from Small Business Trends.

Policy

Is health care reform already hurting small business? Learning from Massachusetts. Small business owners decry health costs. SouthCoastToday.com

Is insurance regulation helping or hurting small business? A perspective from Hawaii. HMSA seeks 7.8% hike in small-business rate. HonoluluAdvertiser.com

Why FICA-tax breaks for hiring the unemployed won’t encourage new hires. Fifteen Billion Dollars but Not a Lot of Sense. The article notes that the Senate proposal “encourages companies to violate the most basic tenet of good business, which is to hire the most qualified people.” NYTimes.com

Congress will not be acting on credit card interchange reform this year — and less government interference is probably a good thing. No Interchange reform legislation in 2010. If your small business accepts credit cards, this article gives tips for how to shop around for the lowest interchange rates. Vantage Viewpoint

Credit

Small business borrowing is up…but so are delinquencies. Exclusive: Small business lending up third straight month. Reuters

Small businesses need more sales, not more loans. Economists Argue Small-Business Concerns over lending overblown. WSJ Blogs

No credit? No problem. Start your business with a 401k. But we here at Small Business Trends would add, “be very very careful – not everyone can afford to risk their retirement.” SmallBusinessFinancing.com

Marketing

Women make most small-business B2B purchasing decisions. National Association for Female Executives (NAFE) Honors Office Depot. MarketWatch.com

Be sure to weigh your return on investment in the new online marketing world. Services Combine Social Media, Marketing. WSJ Small Business

Michael Katz explains why your small business needs deadlines. I Walk the Line – Newsletter Marketing Tips. Charlie Cook’s Marketing For Success Blog

Don’t leave word-of-mouth marketing to chance. Use Case Studies to Increase Word-of-Mouth Marketing. HubSpot.com

Unlike the post office, the e-mail is going strong! Email Marketing For Small Business Slowing Down? Understanding Marketing

Operations

Ever wonder how your state ranks on energy costs? The “Energy Cost Index 2010″ ranks the 50 states and District of Columbia, as they affect small businesses, individuals and families.  The lowest cost states for energy costs are Wyoming, Kentucky and Missouri, in that order. Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council

Some great advice from venture capitalist Fred Wilson on the real nature of entrepreneurism. Rolling Up Your Sleeves and Getting Your Hands Dirty. A VC Blog

If these things really bug customers, why do businesses keep doing them? Are you listening to what customers are saying?  Watch this video to see what they are.  AllBusiness.com

Startups

Emma Jones says “Move over, Rupert Murdoch!” Become a media magnate from the kitchen table. Create a publishing empire from your home. Microsoft Small Business Blog

A surpising message to startups from local government leaders: Be adaptable and self-sufficient. Small businesses advised to think big. Recordnet.com

Jim Kukral talks about the importance of focusing on who you are. “I’m Not As Smart As Chris Brogan,” says Jim.  Then he explains why you should be you and quit worrying about trying to be someone else. JimKukral.com

Entrepreneur Johns Wu talks about finding the niche online marketing brass ring. Johns Wu – Founder, Developer, Sole Employee, and eventual Seller of Bankaholic.com.  This is a real-life story of a young Internet entrepreneur who became a millionaire before age 23, and retired. MO.com

I used to own a market research firm, and we’d do just about anything for a buck. You need focus groups? No problem. You need a conjoint study? We’re your guys. Mall intercepts? Let me get out my clipboard.

I found by offering such a broad set of services, we never really got good at any one thing. We had consultants doing certain types of projects only once or twice a year, so they lacked experience and got intellectually rusty. We needed all sorts of people to offer such a broad set of services, making the business neither scalable nor sellable. Eventually we decided to change models and offer one set of research papers to all of our clients on a subscription basis.

The subscription business started off well enough, but along the way, someone asked us if we still did focus groups. It was like a recovering addict being offered a fix. We jumped at the opportunity to do the project. The problem was that people noticed the crack in our resolve and burrowed a large hole in our claim of being specialists. Clients realized we weren’t totally committed to the subscription model and started asking for customization to our reports and one-off side projects. My employees noticed we had strayed from our offering and started accepting other projects — much like a child seeing his parents say one thing and do another.

Pretty soon, we were running two businesses in parallel with our resources being spread across two completely different models. We were half-pregnant: spread thin, cash flow tightened, project quality slipped and deadlines pushed. After a while, with clients demanding custom work, we had to abandon the subscription model and go back to just doing projects.

After retreating for a few years into the misery of owning an unsellable service business, we took another run at building a subscription business. This time, we told clients we were not accepting custom projects anymore.

We had to start saying no before clients realized we were serious.

I expected good clients to balk and that sales would dip. Instead, a funny thing happened: we started having much better conversations. Clients stopped asking us to do custom work and started asking how our new model could help them achieve their goals. For every one client who said no to our new model, two new ones heard about our unique offer and wanted in. Our salespeople got good at the pitch and were able to sign up 100 enterprise customers as subscribers.

The subscription business is a build-once-sell-many-times annuity model. Our scalability, recurring revenue and focus ultimately allowed me to sell the business in 2008.

Here’s a video that describes how you can identify a scalable product or service of your own: