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Thanks to Week 366 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

Purple SOB Button Original SOB Button Red SOB Button Purple and Blue SOB Button
and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

How to Choose an SEO Agency for Your Business

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Brian Taylor

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How to Choose an SEO Agency for Your Business

Well-optimized, effective websites aren’t just for Fortune 500 companies and tech companies anymore. Now more than ever, it’s important for small business owners to fully understand just how beneficial a successfully executed website can be for them as well.

In order to make your website successful, you need to make sure it’s fully search engine optimized and unless you’re an SEO expert yourself, you’ll no doubt want to hire a team of experts to help you get the job done right. Here’s how to make sure the experience goes as pleasantly as possible.

Have Faith in the Professionals You Choose

As is the case with hiring any other team of professionals to help you with your business, trust is an extremely important factor in your relationship with your SEO team. Once you’ve chosen the right professionals for the job, it’s important to have faith in their ability to do the job right and deliver you the results they promised. Avoid micromanaging and nagging at all costs.

Be Patient

Even once a given SEO strategy has been formulated and officially set in motion, it still takes time for the changes to yield results. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all! The SEO agency you’re working with most likely gave you an estimate as far as how long it would take for you to start to notice results. Definitely give it that much time to work and take root.

Treat Your SEO Agency as a Partner

When working with any SEO agency, it’s of the utmost importance that you treat them as the partners they are. These are trained experts who know their craft just as well as you know yours, so they should be treated as equals working toward a common goal. Be professional in your communications and realistic in your expectations. Definitely address questions or concerns politely and with respect.

Pay for Quality Work

The SEO agency you hire to help you make the most of your website is made up of qualified business professionals that are doing what they do for the same reasons you are – because it’s their profession. As such, they expect to collect payment for services rendered according to their terms of service. Respect and adhere to the company’s business terms and be sure to pay them promptly for good services rendered. Always be sure to hold up your end of your business contract in every way, shape, and form as well.

Teaming up with an SEO agency in order to get results that deliver for you is simple when you follow a few simple guidelines.

Author’s Bio:
Brian Taylor is the VP, Business Development at Forix SEO in Portland, OR. a team of crack SEO experts with an impressive record when it comes to results, experience, and expertise. Forix offers affordable and ethical SEO services in Portland helping small businesses with their Internet marketing needs.

What Social Networks Can Do For Your Small Business

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Alex Summers

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What Social Networks Can Do For Your Small Business

If you’re a small business owner, you can use social media networks to establish your company’s presence on the Internet. These tools can help you keep in touch with current customers and help you find new clients. Your business must adapt to the online marketplace to take advantage of the Internet.

How to Connect With Your Audience

If you already have a website for your business, you can improve it by adding a blog. A blog allows your regular visitors to easily see your latest news and updates. Additionally, visitors can use the comment portion of your blog to give you instant feedback. Be sure to save backup copies of your blog files to an external hard drive. This will help you get your blog running again after a server failure or other technological catastrophe.

Social networks give you another way to directly communicate with your customers. Twitter and other similar networks allow you to strike up a conversation with a customer through a series of short messages. Your customers can use these networks to get help with your products or services.

Many Internet users today have their own Facebook account. Creating a Facebook account for your business gives your customers a new way to reach you. Your Facebook profile can share important information about your company, including contact details and special deals.

The Benefits

Using these tools helps you to establish yourself on the Internet. Today’s Internet users expect their favorite businesses to have an online presence. Many customers want to have the ability to talk to a company representative when they need help with a product. Some consumers will forget about a company that lacks an online presence.

Social networks also provide you with easy ways to advertise your business for free. Through Facebook and Twitter, you can talk to thousands of people at no charge. You can use these tools to tell people more about your business and your story.

Additionally, when you communicate with a regular customer through these networks, your potential customers can see how you publicly handle your business. Through positive online interactions, you can help generate buzz for your company. You may even attract new customers just from responding quickly to your current clients.

Social networking tools can help your small business find a place in the modern business world. Learning how to use these tools effectively will take time, but your company may find new customers due to your efforts.

Author’s Bio:
Alex is a blogger, freelance writer and recent college graduate. She currently performs market research for an online marketing firm when she is not contributing her own thoughts and observations to the online community.

How to Compete in Logistics to Grow Your Business

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Alan Murfee

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What Is and Why Logistics?

Logistics deals with where, to whom and how the product is to be supplied.

Due to the increasing online businesses, the demands of the logistics services have taken a huge leap. With the growing importance of timely and efficient delivery, many successful firms outsource their logistics services. The competition in the logistics business has grown fiercer and impending recession has further worsened the situation.

How to Compete in Logistics to Grow Your Business

Whatever product your business might build or deliver, logistics is how you get that product to the people who want and need it. So to maintain the strong hold of your business in market and to grow it, use the following helpful tips when making decisions about how to deliver the best of your business:

  • Plan Ahead: There is nothing more beneficial than planning well ahead in time. It does not just minimize the scope of any last minute problems but also gives you quite some time to plan each and every detail thus leaving nothing to chances. The shipping of large consignments is never easy and that too when it has to be transported overseas. So, making a checklist would greatly help in proper implementation of the task.
  • Avoid panicking: Panic hinders you from taking right decisions and judgment. So, avoid panicking if a delivery gets delayed or a consignment gets misplaced. Keeping cool in such stressing situations would multiply your effective logistics management skills. When a situation goes out of control, you should come up with temporary solution rather than going tizzy.
  • Relationship along the supply chain: An efficient logistics solution knows that their entire operation relies on an effective supply chain, especially during an impending recession. So, a strong relationship with the suppliers and vendors becomes utmost important. As there is nothing better than the good words to attract and retain the clientele.
  • Research Market and Identify partners: Develop an effective strategy to effectively research the market for potential clients and partners. This would not just give you an edge over other competing services but will also generate huge profits in the long run. At the same time, keeping the high standard of the services will maintain the client base for you, thus giving you an edge over the other competitors.
  • Logistics strategy: Logistics is not about timely shipments of the products but also maintaining the funds for efficient supply chains. So, to be the best 3PL globally, you need to look for the cost effective strategies for the timely overseas shipments. The modes of transportation should cover sea, road, rail and air. Having a tie-up with these services will not only reduce the transportation cost but with the increased efficiency more and more companies will choose your logistics business over the others.

Staying strategic about logistics can add the advantage that can grow your business and even move it into a category of one.

Author’s Bio:
Alan Murfee writes about Logistics Solution. You can find him (or her) on Twitter as @Alan

How Trust Raises the Bar

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What Is Trust?

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What is trust?

Trust is a very big word. I talk a lot about being authentic online because we can’t see the person on the other side of the screen. Truth is we can’t see what other folks are thinking even when they’re standing right before us. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about trust, writing about it.

Three years ago, when I was sick and couldn’t do everything for myself, I had to trust that the people who offered really wanted to help. It was trust that they would hold me in the same place with the same affection had I not asked. I had to trust that their help wouldn’t lead them to think less of me.

I choose with care, asked with care, and cared about the people I chose.

The help I received showed itself in ways I will never forget. I had forgotten that trust is a powerful relationship builder. Those old and new friends not only showed up, but came as if my request for a hand was a gift to them.

And because I choose to trust with care in my life. I could trust without fear.

How Trust Raises the Bar

Trust in business works the same. When we worry about who will speak for us, it’s a moment of trust. Whether it’s at a conference booth, in an email, or on a social networking site, we just need people we trust. Employees, vendors, partners, customers — the question isn’t about controlling their words. It’s about choosing people who share our values, because shared values build trust. Choose people you trust to build your business.

If we choose the people we hire with care, assign them to work they care about, and care about them and the work they do, we find out that the trust goes both ways. We don’t have to fear how they’ll respond when the going gets tough. When we take time to answer questions, listen, engage, build relationships by aligning our values and goals, trust occurs in both directions. Build trust relationships and your policy documents won’t have to weigh tons, because …

Trust raises the bar for all of us.

How do you recognize people you trust?

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss