Blogging is the perfect small business marketing tool. If you’re selling and gaining leads via the web, then the web is also your main marketing super-channel. How to do people locate what they need online? Two ways: Online search Word of mouth through online channels like email, blogs, and other social tools (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)…

This is a guest post by Sheryl Sisk. Once upon a time in the golden days of yore, bloggers made money hand over fist (or so it seemed) simply by showing up and blogging. A handful of particularly lucky ones got lucrative book deals, and the rest raked in the dough with Google ads peppered…

In spite of everything you read about marketing, do you feel as though you still don’t have a solid overall picture in your mind about it? You’re not alone—far from it. The way we consume information and learn online is a fragmented experience: a blog post here, another one there, an ebook about a singular…

Most people are simply terrible at marketing. It’s kind of insane, when you think about it. Marketing activities bring in customers, without which you have no business. This makes marketing the most important activity you can do. After all, customers do not just magically show up and throw money at you. Without marketing, you have…

“Marketing channel.” “Public relations.” “Get the message out.” “Creative should handle this.” Are you speaking the language of the dead? Your blog is not a marketing channel. It is not a one-way message delivery service. Blogs (and all social media) are two-way conversations. Public relations is a euphemism for corporate propaganda. Ever notice how in…

I subscribe to the amazing blog FreelanceSwitch, and last weekend I noticed Jonathan Fields had casually dropped an invitation in a comment on a post there to send in your blog URL to possibly receive a free marketing review. When things like this happen, you gotta figure most people will not go for it, telling…