An article at Inside CRM lists 15 websites that can influence your business for good or bad, but the article is rather flawed. Here are the 15 sites the article lists that are influential enough to make or break your company:

• Google
• YouTube
• Amazon.com
• Wikipedia
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Digg
• TechCrunch
• Colbert Nation
• Valleywag
• Twitter
• The Smoking Gun
• Oprah
• The Consumerist
• The Huffington Post

The problem with this list is that most of these websites don’t give a hoot about your small business enough to pay it one iota of attention, let alone boost it on a pedestal or drag it through the mud. Of this list, most small business owners need only consider 4 of them, maybe 5, as potential websites to concern themselves with in protecting their brand.

Those 5 sites are:

• Google
• YouTube
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter (wild card)

Google, of course, is the most popular search engine today. They really don’t care about your site. An impartial source, Google algorithms do all the work. It’s up to you really how well, or how poorly, you are perceived through Google’s lenses. Google does nothing; you do everything. They catalog information; you present it. But you can build a solid business online without being listed in Google (though I wouldn’t recommend it).

YouTube is a video sharing site. Yes, you can have videos go viral. Many have. But look at the odds. Seriously, millions of videos uploaded, only thousands with a record of success. Possible, but don’t bet money on it. Just build your brand honestly, create and upload videos if they’ll benefit you, and just do good business. To be honest, YouTube isn’t for everyone, but for those that it will benefit it has potential.

Facebook is one of the best ways you can build your brand. Like Google, it does nothing. You do everything. These sites provide the opportunity; it’s up to you to take advantage of it. Network, network, network.

MySpace is for teens. Does your business cater to teens? Use it. If not, forget about it.

Twitter, I’ve never used it. I’ve heard it’s great. It probably is. Many people use it and say sweet things. If you want to give it a go I see no reason why you shouldn’t.

But what about the rest of these sites? Amazon.com is an online book store and product retailer. Do you sell through them? Is it a place that you could sell through? Then by all means it could help you. If you’re not a retailer then Amazon likely won’t be much good for you.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. Most of us don’t need to be listed there. Have you made any significant accomplishments? Maybe they deserve a mention. But don’t expect a flood of business just because your friend Biff went up and told the world that you won the Blue Ribbon Award for Dog Grooming in Nantucket, Illinois (Is there a Nantucket in Illinois?).

TechCrunch, Valleywag, The Smoking Gun, The Consumerist, and The Huffington Post are all news sites. If you aren’t newsworthy then you likely won’t be mentioned on any of these. TechCrunch and Valleywag only deal with technology so if you aren’t a technology company then don’t count on it. The Smoking Gun destroys reputations. Sound inviting? The Huffington Post is a political site. The Consumerist is The Smoking Gun of the marketplace, but if you aren’t a big brand worth talking about then they likely won’t care that you ticked off Bongo the Clown because you didn’t have any red balloons.

That leaves Oprah, Colbert Nation, and Digg. Oprah is very influential. But you have to work your soles off to get on her show and it’s a task. Unless you have something that has a very wide and potentially popular appeal, don’t waste a lot of time chasing Oprah.

Stephen Colbert is a funny guy. Why would he care about your small business? Only Colbert knows.

And Digg, hmmm. Interesting site. Can help you get a lot of traffic. But if you look like you are trying to get publicity through Digg then you’ll get blasted by the in crowd at Digg. They either like you or they don’t and they generally don’t like marketers. But you can get some traffic here. Personally, I think you’re better off with StumbleUpon and a few other social sites. The most popular isn’t always the best.

Honestly, Yahoo and MSN Live can do you better service than some of these sites. As a small business, just stick to the basics and you’ll do fine.

Do you have a small business Internet marketing blueprint?

From time to time I like highlighting useful websites and one that I found recently that looks very promising is Picnik.

If you like Photoshop you’ll love Picnik. The online version of photo cropping and and photo enhancing, Picknik will give you the tools to do what you want to do and to top it off, it is compatible with all of the photo sharing sites online.

You may be wondering why you’d switch from Photoshop to Picnik if Photoshop does the trick. Here are the practical applications that you need to consider:

1. If the photos that you want to crop and enhance are already uploaded to Flickr, Photobucket, or Facebook then you’ll have to edit them in Photoshop then re-upload them to your favorite photo sharing site by either replacing the original or changing the name of the file. But with Picnik you can edit the photo right from the photo sharing site, saving you time and hard drive space on your computer in home or office.
2. With Picnik you can edit your photos and save them to a photo sharing site, your hard drive, or in a folder on your server to be used when you blog or build your website.
3. Anything you can do in Photobook can be done in Picnik and it’s compatible with PCs, Mac, or Linux operating systems. That means you have unlimited versatility.
4. Let’s say you are blogging and you upload a photo to your blog, but realize afterward that you want to crop out a portion of it or clear up some imperfections in the photo. No need to open up Photoshop and edit the photo then re-upload it. You can edit the photo in Picnik and save it over the uploaded photo in your blog. Again, this saves a lot of time and resources.

Picnik is a cool online photo editing site that will let you do anything you need to do with your professional, personal, or artistic photos. And it’s free. Of course, they also have a paid version that you can upgrade to, but the free version does so much that only the most advanced users will want to upgrade. I’m sure you’ll love Picnik.

Now here’s a Google tidbit I wasn’t aware of: Don’t end your URLs with .0. They won’t get ranked.

Evidently, this phenomenon is only true at Google. Yahoo! and MSN Live index those pages anyway, but it does seem to be a rather arbitrary rule. As Rand says, a human review might be in order to ensure that such pages aren’t spam. If they are, Google can ditch them. If not, then approve them and index them. Seems simple.

It pays to read the leading SEO blogs from time to time just to see if anything new develops. In fact, I’d say that the three most important activities for anyone interested in do-it-yourself SEO are:

• Read a handful of SEO blogs to stay on top of industry changes
• Test and experiment
• Review and analyze

I know SEOmoz does these things. Any serious SEO and any successful Internet marketer is doing all three and that’s why the .0 rule is such big news. None of us have ever seen it before.

A couple of days ago I discussed two social networking applications that local business owners might consider for turning their local website into a social community for their users. Facebook Connect and Google FriendConnect both look to be promising tools. But there has been a change in one of them.

Facebook has decided not to let Google FriendConnect use its API unless the search engine decides to protect Facebook users’ privacy. Good move on Facebook’s part.

What this means for local business owners is you now have two equally considerable options. Facebook Connect will allow you to give your local website access to Facebook profiles and allow your site users the ability to network with others through Facebook - privacy and all. Google FriendConnect will still be a bit more flexible, but there will be less privacy and no Facebook.

Why are these choices equal? Because Facebook has a lot of useful applications and options for you, but it currently is limited in its interface capability with other networking applications. The Google FriendConnect will allow you to interface with a broad array of social applications even if Facebook isn’t involved. It will essentially mean that Facebook Connect and Google FriendConnect will be direct competitors with Facebook offering privacy as a selling point and Google FriendConnect offering flexibility as a selling point. The question for local businesses to answer for themselves and their users will be which benefit is more valuable to them.

Learn more about website design and development for social connectivity.

Want to protect an image? There’s a new tool online to help you do just that. It’s called TinEye.

TinEye is the first image search. The best application I can think of for this tool for small business owners is to see how your images are being used online. If someone is using your image without authorization and in ways that you don’t approve of then you can stop them from using your trademarks illegally and unethically.

According to their sales page, TinEye uses image identification technology and pattern recognition algorithms to see if images have been modified. So if someone takes your original artwork and modifies it for their own use without paying you for the privilege, you’ll know about it. Other uses of this technology include:

• The ability to research corporate brands and products
• To see how others have used a particular public domain photo so that you don’t duplicate them
• Research the use of stock photos online
• See how images you know have been modified

I’ve got to hand it to the folks at TinEye for coming up with a unique and creative idea in image search. If this tool works better than Google Images then I can see partnership coming. Image search online needs some improvement.

There are two great ways to use the Google Custom Search Engine to brand your business and help your site visitors find what they want more easily.

The first way involves building a local search engine so that visitors to your site can find what they want in your local area. The second way is to create an industry-specific search engine that helps visitors to your site find what they are looking for in your industry no matter where in the world it may be located. Both types of search engines can be used as a branding tool for your business.

Let’s say you own a dentistry website in Wayzata, Michigan. You can build a local search engine to help people in Wayzata find anything they want in Wayzata and that can be an effective way to brand you to your local customers as well as keep your local visitors on your site longer and when they are in need of veneers, who do you think they’re going to call?

On the other hand, you could skip the local search angle and build a dentistry search engine. Anyone interested in finding something related to dentistry - be it a dentist in their home town, the latest technology used in dental offices, research currently being conducted in the area of teeth maintenance, etc. - and visitors to your website can find anything related to dentistry through your website.

You can brand your custom search engine using Google’s unique branding features and design your search results pages to look just like your website. Since Google Custom Search also powers AdSense for Search, you can turn the search engine into another source of revenue for your business. How cool is that?

So, to recap:

• Branding
• More Traffic
• Visitors Stay Longer
• AdSense for Search
• Customization

Why not start your own search engine?

No matter what kind of small business website you have, there is one tool that will benefit you anywhere in the world: Google Analytics. An account with Google Analytics is free. But it is one of the most essential tools for your business.

Google Analytics will help you track and analyze your traffic, sales conversions, and other important website statistics. If you care what people are doing on your website then I highly suggest you open up a free Google Analytics account.

Once you sign up for an account, you take the Google code provided and insert it onto each page of your website. Then you’ll be able to log in to your account at any time and see how many visitors you’ve had, where the visitors came from, how long they stayed on your site, your bounce rate, and see other statistics and trends. You can also set goals and track how well you’ve done in meeting them.

This tool is important if you wish for continuous improvement in your website business. And one other aspect of Google Analytics that is helpful is you have the ability to see how well you are doing against your competitors. A truly useful tool indeed.

Marketing your small business is a very important part of growth, but it´s also something you need to do in order to maintain your current clients. Competition between businesses is fierce, but with a good marketing plan, you can keep your customers and win new ones.

However, many people just aren´t comfortable with marketing, so rather than figure out a plan and try to put it into action, they prefer to wait and let word of mouth do the work. While word of mouth is an excellent method of marketing your business, it certainly isn´t very fast, so you really need a good marketing plan and put it into action.

Jay Line´s new ebook, How to Write a Marketing Plan That Wins New Clients and Grows Your Business shows you exactly how to create a marketing plan that works for your business and how to implement it. I highly recommend this ebook to anyone who is interested in boosting their business.

Caroline
Small Business Mavericks
Back to the Blog

I didn’t spend 20 years in corporate marketing for nothing. I am taking what I learned there and applying to small business situations - for myself and for my clients. And I’d like to share my knowledge with you too!

When it comes to marketing your small business, you do not have to sit on the sidelines and watch the big boys play. There are affordable, effective marketing strategies that you can employ for your small business to attract new customers and to make your existing customers want more. All it takes is a little creativity and know-how.

You can’t exist in business any more without some Internet marketing. And it’s only going to become more necessary at the local level as more and more businesses go online and market their businesses to local customers. Thankfully, the options for local small businesses are legion:

• E-mail marketing
• Blogging
• Social bookmarking
• Mobile marketing
• Local pay per click
• Online yellow pages
• Online press release distribution
• Organic SEO
• Social networking
• Viral video marketing
• Podcasting
• E-books and free downloads

Not all of these online marketing methods are necessary for every business, but all of these are quite effective for every business. If you’ll give me a call or e-mail then I’ll be happy to help you find which Internet marketing methods are most appropriate for your situation. Local small businesses finally have the leverage they need to compete with their corporate competitors.

Caroline Melberg
Small Business Mavericks
Small Business Mavericks Blog

TechCrunch ran a cool story two days ago about Google stats. It seems that iGoogle was the most popular Google product this past year. What that means is people are really getting into the personalization aspect of Google Search. So what does that mean for you?

Ask your customers if they use iGoogle. If they do then you want to reach them through that somehow. Find out what they are searching for and, better yet, find out what features they include in their iGoogle pages. iGoogle allows you to create your own widgets for your friends and customers to use on their iGoogle pages. Here’s a tip: Create a search engine for your industry and let your customers know. If you are a local business, create a local search engine and let all your customers know. You don’t even have to charge anyone in your area to include them. Just do it. Then let everyone in your community know that your search engine is available and can be used. People will not only use it but put it on their iGoogle pages as well.

When you name your search engine, be sure to give it an easy to recognize local name. But also make sure that people know that your business is the sponsor. If you let your customers know, they will let their friends know. Before you know it, the whole world (well, your little part of it any way) will beat a path to your door.

Caroline Melberg
Small Business Mavericks
Small Business Mavericks Blog