This was the start of Guit Strips Guitar Straps, our custom leather guitar strap business.  My husband James knew a little bit about leatherwork.  His grandfather was a very talented leather craftsman and he had spent countless hours watching his grandfather work when he was a child.  James has been a professional musician for all of his adult life, so he decided to combine both of his worlds.

This was going to be a joint venture.  James created the product and I handled the business aspect.  This started with learning how to build a website as I know this was the core of any Internet business.  As the business took off, I became the person who handled the website, marketing, and business end of our Internet venture.  It has been quite the learning process for me, but there is nothing quite like on the job training.  These last three years, I have invested a huge amount of time building our website and trying to figure out how to improve the business.

It definitely helps to have a quality product.  And we have that without a doubt.  But simply having a quality product doesn’t bring in customers and it certainly doesn’t put you at the top of Google.   Our business was doing pretty well with some simple online ad placement and word of mouth.   We had a lot of website traffic, but not nearly enough sales conversion.  Most of our inquiries were just that.

I had heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but I didn’t know much about it.  All I knew was that it was supposed to help improve your website traffic.  I wanted to learn more, so I started reading.  I lucked out and happened to grab the best book out there on SEO.

Once I knew a little bit about SEO, I started applying it to our business.  Much to my surprise, I started seeing results within weeks.   We started moving up in the search engines and we had more website traffic.  And the best part of it all was that we started to sell more guitar straps!  Now that our website traffic was targeted, we had inquiries from people that were actually looking for something specific and came across our website.   The more I applied the SEO techniques I had learned, the more business we got.

I started using SEO on our website in early 2009.  Our 2009 sales more than tripled our total sales for 2008.  And our sales for 2010 have nearly doubled those of 2009 already, with two and a half months left to go for the year!

Right now, Guit Strips Guitar Straps is on the first page of Google for the keywords “custom guitar straps”, “personalized guitar straps”, “Texas guitar straps”, and “Austin guitar straps”.  We are on the second page of Google for “leather guitar straps”.  That’s pretty good for a small mom and pop business that started out of nothing three years ago.

So now I revert back to my client’s question of how I ended up in the SEO business.  I learned Search Engine Optimization out of necessity and discovered that it truly works.  I have seen firsthand how effective SEO is.  It will help move a business up in the search engines, increase website traffic, and sell more product!  I totally believe in the effectiveness of SEO and I want to share what I know with other people so that they can grow their businesses too.

The best advice I can give is to stay away from anything that sounds too easy.  There are going to be numerous get rich quick schemes out there that will pop up on the Internet and television.  They are going to want your money and unfortunately lots of people give it to them.  The only people making money from these are the ones collecting it from the naïve people who give it to them.  Avoid multi level marketing or pyramid schemes.  The people at the top of the pyramid are making money, but the ones who come in later at the bottom are hard pressed to make much of anything.

Instead, think about what you like to do and what you do well.  What are you qualified to do?  Can you provide a product that people would buy or a service that people would find useful?  Is it marketable? If yes, then you’re on your way to having an Internet business.  Figuring out what kind of Internet business you want to start is a big part of the process.

Now that you know what product or service you are going to sell, it’s time to think about all of the surrounding details.

• How much are you going to charge for your product or service?
• Are you going to focus on selling locally via the Internet or do you want to sell all around the world?  It’s very feasible sell to either market (or both) when you have an Internet business.
• How will your business operate?  Will it just be you or is this going to be a family business?  Do you want to have a business partner?
• What kind of guarantee / quality assurance policies do you intend to implement in regards to your business?
• What forms of payment will you accept?
• What are your payment policies?
• And, one of the most important questions, how do you intend to bring in website traffic and paying customers?

There aren’t any right or wrong answers to these questions; they are just designed to get you thinking about some of the vitally important issues with Internet business.

If you are going to start an Internet business, you absolutely must have a website.  You cannot have an Internet business without one.  If you have a ton of start up cash lying around, then by all means hire someone to create a website for you.  If you really don’t have a clue when it comes to computer stuff, try placing the job on a website like Elance.com, where freelancers can bid on work and you can choose the person who is the best fit for the job at a good price.  If you have some computer know how, but you’re not a certifiable computer geek, think about building your own website through Homestead.com.  Homestead offers easy to use Site Builder software and has many templates available (or you can start from scratch).  If you are a computer geek, then just ignore this paragraph and build your own website through one of the many programs available like Dreamweaver.

Just because you have a website, doesn’t mean that people are going to be able to find it.  There are likely hundreds of thousands of businesses out there on the Internet like yours who are all vying for the first page of Google for the keywords associated with your business.  And they don’t get there on luck alone, nor does the caliber of their business have anything to do with it.  The websites that are on the first page or two of the search engines have implemented SEO (search engine optimization) with their website.  If you are going to spend money starting your Internet business, this is the best place to spend it.  Hire an SEO professional!  These people know how to get you found by the search engines and all the tricks involved in doing so.  The right amount of search engine optimization can make or break your Internet business.  If you are at the front page of the search engines, then people will be able to fine your website and many of these people will turn into customers.

You can hire an SEO professional to do a multitude of different things including keyword research, writing all of your website content, tweaking existing website content, and external linking among many other things.  Do make sure that you hire an SEO expert who practices organic search engine optimization (there are many people out there who practice “black hat SEO” and you should stay away from them).

Good luck in getting started with your Internet business!

That’s right.  Twitter is more than just another avenue for social media.  It’s a great way to market your business.  And it doesn’t cost you anything.  As a business owner, you surely must have an appreciation for free advertising!

Let me explain.  While it is true that Twitter is another way to follow one another, it is also true that businesses can use it effectively.  Your goal should be to build up a following on Twitter and then get your message out to all of the people following you.  It’s a little more complicated than that though.

Signing up with Twitter is a pretty easy process.  You choose a username and password and fill out your profile.   Twitter gives you the choice of several backgrounds to choose from.  Once you are set up with these simple things, you can start posting tweets.

Many businesses make the very common mistake of using one of the stock backgrounds offered by Twitter.  In one word – don’t!  It makes your business look generic and unprofessional.  Also, unless someone was to actually read your (limited) profile, then they wouldn’t know anything about you.  You need a custom Twitter background to set yourself apart.  When you have a custom background for your business, you are taking advantage of valuable advertising space.

Creating a custom background for Twitter can be a bit tricky though.  For the computer savvy business owner, you can use a program like Photoshop or even Microsoft Paint to create your background. For those who want to look professional on Twitter but don’t want to mess with it, I suggest you contact a social media consultant who can take care of it for you.

Now you are ready to start posting tweets.  The most important thing to realize is that Twitter postings aka “tweets” are limited to 140 characters or less.  Twitter is all about getting your point across by saying very little.  This can be frustrating and wonderful at the same time.

Many people rush into Twitter and unknowingly only post tweets about their business.  This is a very bad idea!  Think about it.  Would you want to only read posts about someone’s business?  Of course you wouldn’t.  Some postings about your business are fine, but in order to get people interested in what you are saying on Twitter you also need to offer something of value.  This could be a number of things.  You could post a series of helpful tips that are related to your field.  Many people post interesting quotes.  It’s great to add a personal touch, but don’t get too personal.  Remember, these are mostly people you want to market to and not your friends.

It’s not likely that many people are going to actively seek out your business to follow on Twitter (unless you just happen to be a huge brand name).  So you are going to have to do some leg work on this one or hire a social media consultant to handle it for you.  Start searching by going to “Find People” on Twitter.  A great trick to finding followers is to find similar types of businesses and follow people who are following them.  That gives you a greater likelihood that they will follow you back.  Only people who follow you will see your tweets.

Twitter allows you to follow up to 2000 people before putting any kind of restrictions on your account.  After that, you will have to have a certain number of people following you before you can go above this.  Not everyone is going to follow you back and it’s a good idea to unfollow people who are not reciprocating ever so often so that you have more room to increase your followers (and the people you are going to market to).  There are a few Twitter applications out there that are helpful in unfollowing a bunch of people at one time and managing your Twitter account.  Growing your Twitter followers can take a good deal of time.  Some business owners prefer to have a social media consultant handle their Twitter campaigns for them.

Hopefully this information will help you on your way to using Twitter to grow your business.  Happy tweeting!

Many people have the wrong idea when they are creating a website page.  Some people think that need to include everything about their product or service on the page and so they have way too many words and nothing else.  Other people think that it is more eye catching to just have a little bit of information on their website page, which is also a very bad idea.

Here’s the bottom line.  You are likely creating a website page because you want to bring in more business and have people find you via the Internet.  There is a whole lot of competition out there, which means your website pages must be SEO friendly.  A website with very little text may be eye catching, but it is not SEO friendly.  On the other hand, you want people to actually read your website.  They’re not going to want to read an entire book when they get there, so it’s very important that you make your website easy to read.  People should be able to pick up the main points by skimming through your site.

A good website page is SEO and visitor friendly.  Here are some tips to help make this happen:

• Your website page should have 200-450 words of copy.  This allows you enough words for the search engines to pick up, but not so many that nobody will want to read your site.  It’s also helpful to break your text up into sections to make for easy reading.  Bulleted lists are a good way to do this.
• Make your website page look interesting as well as sound interesting.  Jazz it up a little bit.  Play around with different fonts and font sizes, graphics, colors, etc… to make your website page visually appealing.  Use headings and subheadings for additional emphasis and to also help break up your copy.
• You should have a unique page for each topic on your site instead of combining a bunch of different ideas on one.  This is just confusing to people.
• Make sure you are asking the reader to do something.  The point of most websites is sale conversion.  Therefore, you need to ask for the sale!  Direct the reader to make a purchase, fill out a contact form, sign up for your newsletter, or make contact with you in some way.  Don’t let your potential customer get away!

Creating a website page is a relatively easy process.  Keep these tips in mind and you will have more people find your site via search engines as well as stick around to read what you wrote.  All of this equals a successful website page and more business for you!

SEO, otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization, is what helps your business get found online by the search engines.  Have you ever wondered how businesses get to the front page of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other important search engines?  It’s not by luck, that’s for sure.  And contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with how well your business is doing or how fancy your website is.  No, the businesses you will see on the first page of the search engines all have something in common.  Their websites have undergone SEO.  These business owners realized the value of SEO and hired an SEO expert to help with their website.  This is always wise money spent, assuming you hire a reputable SEO specialist to handle your website.

If you have a website, you already have made a big step in the right direction toward having a successful online business.  But what good is your website if no one knows it’s there?  It’s likely that you have business cards with your website address on them and this is also very good, but if you are only handing out business cards your return is going to be very limited.  Just imagine how much potential business is out there just waiting to find you.   SEO will drastically improve the number of website hits you have as well as your sales.  It only stands to reason that if more people find you online, then you will sell more.  With SEO, more people can find you online!

SEO is a bit complicated and can be difficult to understand for most people.   Effective SEO techniques involve determining the right amount of keyword density for your website pages, meta tags, good website copywriting, article submission, and external linking to your website among other things.  Do not expect to see immediate results from SEO efforts, and do not believe anyone who promises this.  It just doesn’t work that way.  However, hiring the right SEO expert will soon have you moving up in the search engines and bringing in more business.

This article discusses what not to do on the Internet’s most popular professional network.

“I talk a lot about how to make effective use of LinkedIn — today let’s look at some ways NOT to use LinkedIn. Here are nine sure-fire ways to network like a schmuck and achieve exactly the opposite effect you’re probably going for:

1. Use the canned invitations. Really — they’re there for your convenience. A lot of thought obviously went into them already, so why should you put any more effort into personalizing your invitations? Everyone loves to get an “I’d like to add you to my professional network” message.
2. Any time you see an interesting profile, invite them to connect. Regardless what LinkedIn recommends, nobody really uses it just to connect with people they know. It’s just like a MySpace friend request — everybody does it. Don’t bother to contact them first — no need. Just send them one of those default invitations.
3. While you’re at it, invite everyone from all your Yahoo! Groups and other discussion lists and forums. One common interest is more than sufficient reason to connect on LinkedIn, isn’t it? Don’t bother to contact them first either. Just send them one of those default invitations everybody loves so much.”

Continue reading here.

Source: Linked Intelligence: The unofficial source for all things Linked In

“Note: This post falls under the category of things you should NOT do . . . I am not writing a how-to manual, I promise. I just wanted to share with some of you how careful you have to be when building your network in a proprietary society.

I was in the “Making Friends” mode. I had several already, but having read “The Virtual Handshake,” I realized that my network needed to be more diverse, with people from all continents, ideologies, and a variety of other “differences” that would add a rich contribution as we enter the coming year.

In this more “proactive” mode, I joined several of the groups that interested me. As I saw profiles that looked like they belonged to people with whom I could network, I clicked to add them as a friend. I included what I saw to be an appropriate comment relating to the reason I was offering my virtual hand in friendship and sent the invitation. I never planned this out on a calendar, but figure I probably took about an hour of my time to grow my network about once every two weeks. Periodically, Facebook would get tired of me before I did and the next time I clicked on “add a friend,” I received a message that I was nearing my “limit.” I took that as a sign to get on with some other productive activity.”

Read more here.

About the author: Carter F. Smith is an educator, trainer, and consummate networker who enjoys provoking thought and encouraging the retention of information

(1) Login to your Facebook account
(2) Go to “Settings” (top right in the toolbar) and the “Application Settings”
(3) Click on “Events” and then “Create and Event”.
(4) In “Step 1″ enter your event title, location, date, time, and privacy settings.
(5) “Step 2″ allows you to add a picture to your event and to enter additional details.  Click “Save and Continue” when done with Step 2.  At this point you can “Publish” the event to your wall and your friends’ home pages or you can skip that step and publish later if you are not done yet.
(6) “Step 3″ allows you to send out invitations.  To invite people who are Facebook friends, just click on their picture.  They have been selected for an invite when their picture turns blue and you see a check mark.  You also have the option of inviting people by email who are not Facebook friends.  You can enter email addresses in the appropriate box if you choose to do that.  You can add a Personal Message if you choose to do so and when you are done, just click ”Send Invitations”.

The most important thing you can do is to open your mind to the concept of working from home.  That may sound simple in nature, but it’s not for most people.  The reason it’s not easy for most people is that they are stuck in the corporate / day job mindset.  Most people think that only a “regular” job can offer them what they need.  It is true that traditional employment frequently offers stability in the form of a regular paycheck and benefits such as health insurance, vacation, sick time, and 401(k).  However, working from home can also provide these things.   You can bring in income on a regular basis if you work from home.  You can purchase your own health insurance (there are numerous options available).  You can even put money away for retirement on your own.  And any time you are sick or want to take a vacation you can, but you can do it without asking someone else for permission first.  Furthermore,  no one’s day job is very stable in today’s economy.  Thousands of people are getting laid off on a daily basis and left with no option.   People working from home create a number of options for themselves, thereby making themselves more likely to get ahead in a floundering economy.

People choose to work form home for a multitude of reasons.  Whatever your reason for wanting to work from home, there is one thing to keep in mind.  It does actually require work!  It’s not easy and no one is just going to hand you a paycheck.  Working from home many even prove to be more difficult than any job you’ve ever gone to every day.  However, your hard work will eventually pay off if you approach it the right way.  Working for yourself can be very rewarding in many ways and you are likely to take pride in your work – perhaps for the first time ever.

Now that you know how to approach working from home, it’s time to discuss how you can make money working from home.  Your options really are limitless.

If you have started your search for work at home opportunities on the Internet, you have already discovered that there are several thousands of companies ready to sell you a work at home opportunity.  If you look even closer, you will also find that many of them trying to sell you on the luxurious idea of working from home, but never tell you what kind of work you will be doing.  Late night infomercials take the same approach.  Trying to sort through the numerous scams can be very frustrating, but you will find that there are some legitimate companies out there.

Freelancing is a viable option for many people who want to work from home.  When the term “freelance’ is mentioned, the phrase freelance writer often comes to mind.  However, freelancing is not limited to writers.  You can take any marketable skills you have and make money being a freelancer.  Just a few of the ways you can be a successful freelancer are with your administrative skills, your ability to write, your experience in sales and marketing, your talent as a graphic designer, or your ability to do website work.  People and companies are willing to spend money to hire freelancers to do work they don’t have the skill set for or just don’t have the time to do.  If you’re interested in freelancing, you should evaluate what your skills and credentials are.  People will want to know what qualifies you to do the work before they hire you.

There are several ways to find freelance work.  If you are just starting out, you may want to think about joining one or more freelance sites.  Some of the top freelance sites are Elance.com and Guru.com.  For a small membership fee, these sites will allow you to post your profile and portfolio.  You can bid on projects in your category, which allows you to have the chance to get selected by a buyer to complete their project.  Although you are subject to membership fees and site rules, this is a great way to get experience, build a client base, and make money.  Advertising is also a good way to find new clients.  Try marketing your skills for free online through Craigslist.com or your local free classifieds.

If you don’t think freelancing is for you, you still have plenty of ways to make money from home.  You may want to consider starting an Internet business that you can operate from home.  Your options with this are endless.  Again, the best way to start with this route is to assess your skills.  Perhaps there is something you can make out of your home that other people would be interested in buying.

You could buy a particular kind of hard to find merchandise in bulk and sell it at a higher price online.  There are also plenty of legitimate business opportunities out there if you want to invest in a business with a proven success record.  Starting an Internet business can be very cheap (with just the costs of websites hosting) or very expensive (buying into an existing business).  Before starting any Internet business, you should do a great deal of thinking and planning to ensure you are on the right track.

Regardless of what work at home venture you decide to pursue it is almost a necessity to have a website so that potential customers can find you online.

Even though there is definitely a lot to know about Facebook, the average user only needs to know the basics.  How involved you want to get with Facebook is completely up to you.

There are three main components to Facebook: account, group, and fan page.  Your actual Facebook account is primary.  You must first have a Facebook account in order to do anything on Facebook.  From your Facebook account you can network with other people (Facebook “friends”), join groups, and subscribe to fan pages.  When you write “what’s on your mind” on your profile wall or on the main page, everyone in your network can view it.  You can also send direct messages (emails) to Facebook friends or write on their walls.  Writing on someone else’s wall is not private because anyone looking at their wall is able to see it.  However, it is not available for everyone to see in the live news feed like a regular post would be.

You should also know about the Privacy Settings on your account.  This is something that Facebook recently implemented.   You can access Privacy Settings through Settings in the top toolbar.  Privacy Settings allow you to control all aspects of your account broken down piece by piece such as “About Me”, “Personal Info”, “Posts by Me”, and “Birthday”.  For each section of your information, you can decide who you want to be able to view it.  Your choices are Everyone, Friends of Friends, Only Friends, or Customize.  Customize can be very useful because it allows for you to make each section available to specific people or even just yourself if you like.  The Customize feature also allows you to hide information from chosen people.  I encourage you to spend a few minutes customizing your Privacy Settings if you haven’t done so already.

There are several ways to find Facebook friends.  Facebook wants to make this as easy as possible for you and they encourage you to network with people you already have connections with.  When you sign up for your Facebook account, you may have noticed that it asked you to enter your email address and password so that you could add people who were already in your email book.  Facebook also regularly offers suggestions for friends who are connected in some way to people you currently have as friends.  Many of these suggestions will have several friends in common with you already and are called “mutual friends”.  “Suggestions” is found on the right side of the homepage.  You can find friends as well.  Go to “Friends” and then “Find Friends” for this feature.  Here you can look for specific people by name or email if you have someone in mind.  For networking purposes, you can type in keywords and see who comes up.  This will allow you to target an audience who will be interested in what you are saying and what you have to sell.  If you do go to add someone who doesn’t know you, it is always a good idea to send a short message along with the friend request so that they understand why you are adding them.

When adding people through “Find Friends” (who are not suggested friends), it is important to realize that Facebook limits the number of friend requests you can make per day.  It is a good idea to not add more than 20-25 people per day.  If you go over this or even add people too fast, Facebook can flag your account and if it happens too many times you can have your account shut down.

Lastly, Facebook caps out at 5000 friends.  This is why it’s a good idea to have a fan page so that if you reach capacity on your number of friends, you can still have people connect with you there.  Facebook’s reasoning for the 5000 is that nobody can truly have more than 5000 friends.  I would have to say that they are right in this assumption.  Obviously if you go over this, then you are using it for networking purposes.