Branding Ideas For Small Businesses

By Janice Jenkins

Creating your own brand is the first step to having a successful marketing campaign for your business. Brand is everything when it comes to advertising. When you have a brand, you are most likely to be recognized and remembered by your clients, as well as your potential customers.

So how do you create an effective brand for your business? Here are surefire ideas to help you create that unique brand that will distinguish you from the rest of your competition.

First things first - your business cards are your representation to your clients, colleagues and prospects. It is your tool to introduce your contact information, in addition to your name and your company's as well. It is a no brainer therefore that your custom cards should have your address as well as your telephone number. It doesn't matter if you are a work-from-home designer, or your shop is adjacent to your garage - you need to have your address in your business card printing pieces.

A location and contact information that your clients can go to or call greatly enhances your credibility as well as your reliability. An address helps you create an established image that your customers can rely on. For privacy issues however, you can always use a P.O. Box address so you won't need to give away your house location.

Second, never leave your house without your full color business cards. This is practically a no-no when it comes to marketing your business. Every moment, each place, and every person you meet is an opportunity presenting itself. Carrying a batch of your cards with you wherever you go allows you more chances of letting other people know about your business. The same goes with your other print ads such as brochures, flyers, postcards, posters and catalogs.

Always remember to reduce your marketing costs. That's the third suggestion. Especially that you're a small business operating on a limited budget, you will always have a problem trying to make ends meet as advertising per se is costly and expensive. Coming up with creative ways to lessen your business card printing costs for example, can save you a lot of money which you can apportion to other operating expenses.

What about your letterhead? Would you like to save on them too? The fourth tip is to design your letterhead to be used as your paper for invoices, flyers, proposals, press releases, some documents in your media kit, and anything else you need to have your logo and company name. Not only do you provide professional image with your brand posted in all your marketing documents, you also help your clients and prospects remember you that easily.

Finally, think of more creative ideas to help you get your message out there. And don't forget your name and contact information. The more times your target audience sees your ad, the better are your chances of getting your brand recognized and retained in the minds of your customers.

Janice Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL. Mostly into marketing research, Janice started writing articles early 2007 to impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing industry.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit: Business Card Printing

How to Get Number 1 Rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN Using Video Hosting Sites

By John Prodonovich

The other day, I did a test to see how fast my videos would be found in the search engines and to see how well they would rank for the keywords I was optimizing my videos for.

The results were outstanding and should bring hope to anyone who feels that getting a #1 or top 10 listing on the major search engines is out of reach. Everyone can get top listings, with videos

The process was very simple. I filmed a video, submitted and tagged my video, and 13 hours later, I was in the #1 spot. Then, 24 hours later that same video on different video networks occupied spots 1, 2 and 3 on Google.

So, how easy is it to do? Very easy, just follow these steps and you'll be getting #1 listings on Google, MSN and Yahoo in no time flat.

First - Create your video. Use a video camera or digital video camera and get the digital file on to you computer so you can manipulate it in a video editing program. If you don't have a video camera, no problem, all you need is a microphone and an audio recording program like Audacity, and you can create an mp3 audio file with 30 seconds to 5 minutes of audio, and convert that audio to video. Don't worry, that's easy too, I'll tell you how in the next steps.

Second - Edit the video file to have the look, feel, URL's and production values you like. If you made an audio file, put that audio file into the video editing software. Most PC's come with Windows Movie Maker, which is free, and you can drop the Mp3 audio in there and place, random Digital pictures throughout the length of the audio file to create the "video" images that go along with your audio.

Third - Upload the finished video file, which should be in wmv format to a video submission host, called Tubemogul. At Tubemogul, you can upload unlimited videos, and then have those videos uploaded automatically to some of the more popular video hosting sites on the internet like Youtube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, Metacafe, Revver, and some other popular one.

Let me say that Tubemogul is also MORE than just a video posting service, they are MUCH more. They can track all the video views you get DAILY on EACH video hosting site. They'll provide charts and other track meta data, that is very important to marketers to daily track stats across all the video sites. And remember, it's all free to do this.

Fourth & Final Step - Push your videos out to the video hosting sites and let Tubemogul do the work for you. But a key element is, you want people to find your videos. The search engines find videos, not based on the content said inside them, but by the tags and descriptions about them. Tagging is the single most important element of getting traffic to other websites, based on what your video is tagged for.

Jeff Mills is giving away free home based business DVDs showing how people can make a six figure income, working from home and is giving away $757 in bonus marketing tools to anyone who claims one of the last remaining DVDs before they sell out. Claim your DVD at http://www.homebasedbusinessdvd.com

R9>

Partner Sites

If you can't find what your looking for here, perhaps try one of our favorite websites

HDMI Cables

Monster Cable Products, Inc. is the world's leading manufacturer of high
quality HDMI cables. Monster Cable is a innovator and producer of performance

audio and video cables for home, car, and professional use including computers

and game consoles. Monster Power delivers cleaner AC power for high surge

protection, increased audio clarity, and the most vivid video possible.
Research Science

Research | Increase Your Search Results Free Research Delivering Your Search
Destination Fast?
Acne Treatment

Therapeutix Acne Treatment System %100 Effective, Complete Medical Solution Recommended
by Dermatologist in Acne Remedies.
Music Downloads

Kazaa.com, Kazaa Media Desktop and Kazaa Plus are products of Sharman Networks. Sharman Networks
is a proactive, virtual, global technology and publishing company, focused on delivering peer-to-peer software,

please visit www.Kazaa.com.
Watch this space, Kazaa is poised to launch an exciting new product.
Pay Per Click

Pay-Per-Click, Advertising, Management, Increase Google Adwords. Advertising Web Service
is a pay-per-click advertising web marketing and management service agency. How much does

it cost to advertise on Google? How many people click on sponsored links? How to advertise on Google?
Sober College

Sober College is an exclusive drug rehab. Start your addiction treatment today. Drug Rehabilitation Sober College
center professionals are waiting to help.

How To Achieve Pagerank 5 For Your Website For Free

by Jazz Lai

There are many small business owners doing ecommerce online who are struggling, trying to increase their top page rank ratings. This is very time consuming and expensive. A lot of ecommerce businesses do not have a budget to allow them to take advantage of link buying, or other endeavors to increase the page rank ratings they need to make the money the big guns do.

How do you build a website for PR0 to PR2?

Here are some helpful hints that will work for you to get a top page rank on Google.

Get a private domain name. This is essential in this business. Be online for a few months. Make sure you change your content regularly, at least once a week. Have at least fifty inbound links that work.

This next step is tricky but not difficult. Have between 50 to 100 plus articles on your site. Submit your website to all of the necessary directories. Begin to link your website in the forums. Become a member of Google's PayPerClick Program. Google will welcome you with open arms. You invest twenty dollars to join Google's PPC program once. Done correctly, you will get back this small investment within a few short months.

It is a wonderful idea to make friends with Google. It is the number one search engine right now. Google's index spiders search the internet, finding sites to rank them against relevance. This takes some time for the spiders to do their job, sometimes up to several months, so have patience because it will take a few months for your site to get indexed.

A page rank of 5 can be reached by generating at least 10,000 links. This sounds daunting but it is not impossible. When you have 200 pages of content with each page having thirty or more links to other pages, those inside links will generate 6,000. Google's spiders will count the links inside the site because the size of your website is just as important as the links inside of it. This is especially valid when all of your website's content is alike.

This method will work for you, but you will have to be patient and allow some time to pass. Give it a few months, then begin checking at Google to see where your page rank is. From here, you will have a good idea in a few weeks if it is moving up, or down in page rank. If it is moving down, then you need to tweak your site, or adjust the keywords and keyword phrases.

Jaz Lai is an internet network marketing prospecting expert expert. Download your free white paper and audio on how to use the internet to Double or Triple your organization within the next 30 days. Available for the next 24 hours only, click below for instant access:

http://www.HowToNetworkMarketing.com

Web	www.advertisingwebservice.com
www.wikipedia.org	www.altnet.com

NY Times Business

Automakers Fear a New Normal of Low Sales

The across-the-board decline in car sales is certain to put more pressure on the fragile finances of manufacturers.

Bid to Revoke Madoff’s Bail Cites His Gifts

Bernard L. Madoff tried to hide at least $1 million in assets from investigators, prosecutors told a judge.

As Prices Rise, Some See $2 Gas

Gasoline prices have risen by several cents amid indicators that the national average could jump to $2 a gallon or higher this spring.

Air Security Could Involve Private Jets

Some 10,000 air operators would lose at least some of their exemption status if a new security plan is adopted.

Coming Down on Tobacco

The new Congress plans to move aggressively against the tobacco industry by regulating cigarettes, raising sales taxes and ratifying an international antitobacco treaty.

Google News

Leggett & Platt Returns to Consumer Electronics Show - ThomasNet Industrial News Room (press release)

Leggett & Platt Returns to Consumer Electronics Show
ThomasNet Industrial News Room (press release), NY - 20 hours ago
CARTHAGE, Mo., December 23, 2008 - Fortune 500 diversified manufacturer Leggett & Platt announces they will exhibit at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las ...

Eaton Sells VORAD® System To Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC - WELT ONLINE

Eaton Sells VORAD® System To Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC
WELT ONLINE, Germany - 21 hours ago
Diversified industrial manufacturer Eaton Corporation (NYSE:ETN) announced today it has sold its VORAD® (Vehicle On-Board Radar) system to Bendix Commercial ...

2009 Economic forecast Look for rebound by 2010 - Solid State Technology

2009 Economic forecast Look for rebound by 2010
Solid State Technology, NH - 12 hours ago
Companies with cash (as long as they don’t squander it to appease Wall Street) and diversified business models, are the best bets. ...

Can Eaton Outrun the Recession? - BusinessWeek

Can Eaton Outrun the Recession?
BusinessWeek - 5 hours ago
And the irony of being so diversified in such an environment is that Eaton is now feeling the pain on all sides. On Dec. ...

fleeing China? Look before you leap - DC Velocity

DC Velocity

fleeing China? Look before you leap
DC Velocity, MA - 14 hours ago
Brutto added that diversified sourcing and "near-sourcing" are likely to become supply chain management best practices in the future.

Yahoo Search Engine News

Stock futures point to higher Wall Street open (Reuters)

Reuters - Stock futures pointed to a firmer Wall Street start on Tuesday, with futures for the Dow Jones industrial average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 up 0.4 to 0.5 percent at 5:20 a.m. EST.

Retail sales seen falling despite deep discounts (Reuters)

Reuters - Deep discounts failed to coax consumers to shop in December, but are sure to sap margins and will likely lead to a number of profit warnings when retailers report sales for the all-important holiday month this week.

Toyota orders 11-day output halt as sales slump (Reuters)

Reuters - Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) is to halt production at its Japanese plants for 11 days in February and March as a sharp slide in U.S. sales has left dealers' lots full of unsold cars.

Prosecutors seek to jail Madoff (Reuters)

Reuters - U.S. prosecutors asked a judge to jail accused swindler Bernard Madoff on Monday, saying he sent jewelry and other items worth more than $1 million to family and friends in violation of his bail.

Merrill brokerage chief McCann to leave (Reuters)

Reuters - Bob McCann, head of brokerage at Merrill Lynch & Co, announced his plans to leave the securities firm, just days after its acquisition by Bank of America was completed.

Business Portal News

Living in the cloud

I used Wakoopa to track which applications I run on my home Windows machine. Here’s what it says: When 96% of your computer time is spent in a browser, that’s living in the cloud.

My RSS Reader Stats

I noticed that The Guardian drew up a list of top 100 sites for 2009. There’s a lot of great sites on their list, from stackoverflow.com to popurls.com to xkcd. One snag for me is that The Guardian only recommended two sites for blogging: Bloglines and WordPress. WordPress is great and just came out with a [...]

Ten things I don’t like about Google Chrome

Recently I blogged about what I like about Google Chrome, and Philipp Lenssen asked a good question: “What do you *not* like about Google Chrome?” Normally when I have suggestions or complaints about a Google product, I talk directly to that team within Google — the Google Chrome team is especially good about listening to feedback. [...]

Charity donation recommendations?

It’s the end of 2008, which means that it’s time for one of my favorite posts of the year: what charities would you recommend donating to? As I said a couple years ago: If you’re not aware of them, GuideStar and Charity Navigator are two good places to start. … Does anyone want to mention specific charities? [...]

I know, I know..

Sometimes I think Twitter steals energy away from blogging. I just did my 1000th tweet a few days ago. I’ll try to write something soon, but it’s been busy for the last few days. At least my cat Emmy has helped me catch up on my newspaper reading:

Google Google Adwords Google FAQ Google Search Engine	Advertising Internet Marketing Advertising Resources Advertising FAQ	Pay Per Click Pay For Traffic Pay Per Click Resources Pay Per Click FAQ	Website Optimization Search Engine Optimization Web Design and Development SEO FAQ SEO Tools
Pay Per Click Pay Per Click Management Google Adwords - AUS Google Adwords - UK Google Adwords - Europe	Our Brands Home Theatre Cables Altnet Music Store Free Music Downloads SEO Drug Rehab	Our Family Google Adwords HDMI Download Music Webhosting Digital Camera	Help About Us Contact Us Advertise Our Terms Business Directory Site Map