on-line Business Tips Archives - NC Small Business TrainingNC Small Business Training

Free Local Directories are Worth Thousands in Free Advertising

If you have a physical address and are not using the core free local business directory listings, you are missing thousands of dollars in free ad space. Here are the basics about the big ones:

Google.com/places
Just look up your company name and address in Google Maps, and if you don’t find your place, go to http://Google.com/places — if you find it and it says in the upper right hand corner “Business owner?” then you need to claim this listing before someone else does. Click on the “Business owner?” link and use your business Gmail account to fill it out. If you don’t have a Google Gmail account, it is free to get one and only takes a few minutes.

infoUSA.com
This is what I call a feeder directory, used by most of the main directories to obtain their base info. Sometimes people will correct an address or phone number in another directory and in a month or two it switches back. When they update their listing at infoUSA.com it will stay corrected after a short period of time. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select “Find a Business” and first see if you are listed; then go to: “Update My Listing” to add or correct your listing here.

Also you may want to add your business listing to Yahoo or Bing.
For Yahoo go to http://listings.local.yahoo.com/ to list your business after checking to see if it is listed on http://local.yahoo.com/
On Bing go to the “Bing Business Portal (BETA)” site: www.bing.com/businessportal to list your business. First check to make sure you don’t already have a listing on Bing at: http://www.bing.com/maps

If you are a micro, local-owned business let me know the link to your business in the comment area. Learn tips and training by following my Facebook Business page: http://BrossmanOnFB.com

Resources for Starting an Online Business

August 11th, 2011 | Posted by martinbrossman in on-line Business Tips - (0 Comments)

Business networking sites:

www.linkedin.com – must join – business networking group, free for basic service

www.comeoninside.com – on-line free business networking for businesses within your area code

Social networking sites & related resources

Facebook.com – free online community where you can create a business page

Twitter.com – microblogging platform that can promote your business as you give value

www.search.twitter.com – For searching posts on Twitter by subject

Bit.ly – URL shortener with analytics

GooglePlus – google.com/+ free online community by invitation, similar to Facebook

www.HootSuite.com – Manage status updates for several sites at once: Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin

Selling Products or Information Online

1shoppingcart.com—add a shopping cart to your website or open an e-commerce store

Kajabiapp.com—create private membership site for your content and sell access to it

Social bookmarking :

stumbleupon.com, Digg.com, delicious.com, sharethis.com – allows users to bookmark blog posts and share them with others

Blogging Sites:

Blogger.com – Google’s Blogger site – easy to use and can add adsense

WordPress.com – High flexibility blogging resource — can add to your own website

Feedburner.com – Add your blog site to for statistics & distribution

www.blogcatalog.com – Place to list your blog

socialspark.com – place to get others to blog about you or your product

Blog Readers / News Aggregators:

bloglines.com – a program to keep track of blog, podcast or any RSS feeds

feeddemon.com by NewsGator – a downloadable reader

Tracking your presence on the Web

www.google.com/alerts – A free service to keep track of the appearances of you or your business on the Web ( use quotes) || www.trackur.com – a more extensive fee-based version

www.SocialMention.com – Free for finding out about conversations in social media

www.infousa411.com – The directory for many directories!

Directories:

www.google.com/places/ – Free, make sure you claim your listing

www.infousa411.com – The directory for many directories!

Keyword research: gkwords.com and Google.com/trends

E-mail marketing

ConstantContact.com—popular e-mail marketing at monthly rate

Icontact.com— another widely used e-mail marketing service, monthly rate

Aweber.com—opt-in email marketing system, monthly rate

MailChimp.com—send out up to 12,000 emails per month free

Self Publishing

www.Lulu.com, www.createspace.com & www.CafePress.com

Press releases:

www.pr.com and www.prleap.com – free press release sites .

Fee-based services: prsurvival.com, prweb.com, BusinessWire.com and www.prnewswire.com

Video:

YouTube.com – allows for your video to be viewed without paying for the hosting

Vimeo.com – a low cost hosting site for longer videos. http://www.footagefirm.com/

Photo/ Photo Sharing:

Flickr.com – method of sharing photos with friends & family

Picasa (picasaweb.google.com ) – Google’s own photo-share

Photos and Audio: Bigstock.com & iStockPhotos.com / ccmixter.org

Useful Blogs & Podcast:

http://blog.pronetworkingonline.com/ – My blog

www.chrisbrogan.com – Social media guru… has great info on his blog

www.CreateBusinessGrowth.com – Blog about useful info on building your business

www.InquireOnline.com – my podcast with something you can use today.

Blog.lindacraft.com – Linda Craft and Team blog – example of a good business blog

www.marketingpilgrim.com – Andy Beal’s blog

http://usinglinkedin.wordpress.com – Help with using Linkedin

Other:

EzineArticles.com, hubpages.com, www.squidoo.com – place to post or submit articles

www.craigslist.org – Free classifieds & more

Information and services including Social Media Consulting:

www.ignitesocialmedia.com & www.connectiveinsights.com – Social Media www.ProNetworkingOnLine.com (my business site)

Terms to know: Blogs, Podcast , RSS feeds, Blog Reader / News Aggregator,

Social Media, wiki, forum, mashup, social network, widget, vlog, Microblog & Avatar

www.wikipedia.org—a contributed knowledge base where you can look up these terms

List compiled by: Martin Brossman – Martin@CoachingSupport.com , (919) 847-4757 – My latest book: Social Media for Business: The Small Business Guide to Online Marketing – available on-line at TheSocialMediaForBusinessBook.com

On Facebook: http://www.FaceBook.com/MartinWBrossman See all my training at http://www.ncsmallbusinesstraining.com

Selling on eBay – The basics of what you need to know – Martin Brossman

November 4th, 2010 | Posted by martinbrossman in on-line Business Tips - (0 Comments)

What I bought with my eBay money.

eBay provides a low-cost way to sell items on-line and learn something about what is selling. You don’t need a store front, website or shopping cart to get going. It also provides a great way to learn about having your own business at a low cost. I became sold on eBay when I became interested in Amateur Radio (or Ham Radio) a few years ago (my call sign is KI4CFS). After passing my test I wanted to buy some radio equipment and made an agreement with myself– whatever junk in the attic that I could sell on eBay I could spend on radio equipment. After making a few thousand dollars from “stuff” in my attic, I not only became sold on eBay but now have some very nice radio equipment (see picture). Here are the basics your need for selling on eBay and let me know how you are making money with it. I am going to recommend you set aside $50.00 to learn how to use eBay.

What you will need to sell on eBay: a checking account; a paypal account; internet connection; some boxes and packing tape.

First the general overview. Go to paypal.com and set up an account then go to eBay and set up an account. Paypal is how you will pay for items and receive money. Next sign-in to ebay:

Look up your item in completed listings

Photo your item

Box your item (collected)

List your item

Sell your item

Ship it

Use Paypal & Parcel tracking

Give feeback after receive

Repeat the process and make lots of money.

Now for a few more detailed tips and notes. Even before you sell you should find a few low cost items to buy online using eBay. Like a new case or plastic protective cover for your phone.

Another resource for selling is http://www.etsy.com/ for crafts.

My video on how to use completed listing to determine the going price of an item on eBay:

Learn more from my Podcast interviewing someone that sell on eBay:
http://inquireonline.info/marketing/making-money-with-ebay

See all my classes and resources on NCSmallBusinessTraining.com Martin Brossman Senior Instructor Small Business Centers

ebay, Martin Brossman, Small Business Center