Keywords are the basic building block of web traffic.  Associate your site with the right keywords and you get a steady flow of quality traffic.  Associate your site with the wrong keywords and you get to watch electronic tumbleweeds blow down the main street of your home page.

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is the process of associating your site with keywords.  SEO is like gardening, you can plant seeds and encourage growth in a certain way, but the exact way your efforts “grow” are largely out of your hands.  And, nothing happens instantly.  You SEO efforts will take weeks or months to deliver returns.

So what happens if you optimize the wrong keywords?  More importantly, what can you do to pick the right keywords before you start?

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Here is part of an interview I did on marketing for small business.

Enjoy.

As some of you might remember, a few weeks after you subscribe to the Thrive Tip of the Week, I send out a survey. The survey asks some basic questions like where are you from, do you own a business, are you planning to open a business, and what’s your biggest marketing challenge.

Most importantly, I want to thank all the people who have taken the time to respond to that survey. Your feedback helps me provide information in my newsletters that matters to you.

I’d also like to share a few of the results from the survey. (more…)

Marketing on a shoestring is pretty much a way of life for us small business owners. This skill is becoming increasingly important because of what’s been going on with the economy.

Here’s a short list of marketing and promotional tactics that are usually inexpensive to implement and, when done right, can deliver a huge return to your business. (more…)

It seems there isn’t much good news about the economy these days. Huge drops in the value of the stock market, tight credit markets that make it difficult to get needed funding, home foreclosures, where does it end?

Small (and large) businesses are looking to see where they can cut back to conserve cash or to match real or anticipated drops in revenue. Marketing and advertising is frequently near the top of the list of things to cut when times get tough.

I think that’s a mistake.

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