Category Blogging

Entries 21 Total

Get Small Business Blogging with WinWeb!

Nov 19, ’07 3:42 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Blogging, Green/Eco-Friendly, Marketing/PR, WinWeb, be successful, market and sell

As part of our OnlineOffice we offer web-services like web-hosting, email, online shop, online file-store and a wordpress blog. Blogging is most certainly the most inexpensive and direct way to communicate with possible customers, you can

  • blog about your products and services; explain certain aspects better;
  • blog about your company and your business mission;
  • blog about your industry, comment on development and differentiate yourself;
  • blog about case studies to do with your product and services.

In other words communicate with others on the internet and market your small business. There are many hosted services out there, which are more or less easy to use. Our approach has been to make the blog a plug-in to the basic web site you can setup without any IT skills. With our free 24/7 live support we can help with any issues, should you have any. problems.

For me blogging is a bootstrapper technique to attract new business without having to spend any more money. In the mid-ninties I used to tell people to get a web-site, today a web-site should be standard for any small business and a blog a must if you want to succeed in the future. You may believe that blogging is all about attracting global audiences, when in reality you can use blogging for very local markets, too. It certainly beats sending out leaflets and it is better for the environment.

If you have a story to tell, tell it – nobody else is going to do it for you. ST.

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Google, am I stupid – or what is going on?

Nov 11, ’07 1:07 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Blogging, Comments

Google-2
If you search google for ” Apple Focus Customer” you get on the first page my post entry about “Learn About Customer Focus From Big Business.”

Nowhere on my blog page, including the comments, can I find:

“I can not say enough good things about Apple customer support.”

How did that get there? I guess after my two posts recently about the bad customer care situation with Apple – this can only be a joke?

Can anyone enlighten me, did I get something wrong, am I going paranoid or is this a flagrant misrepresentation of my original posting? ST.

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New Small Business Idea: Be A Niche Authority

Nov 1, ’07 10:28 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Blogging, Business Ideas, Entrepreneur, Green/Eco-Friendly, Home Business, Self-employed, Small Business / SOHO, Sole-Trader, Start-Up, be successful, sell your business, start-up in business

I’m sure you have some expertise in a special (niche) field, it could be something to do with your training and education, or a hobby you really enjoy.

You can make money with this niche knowledge, and the boorstrapper blog has a post today on how to do that. Raj has posted a great list with an easy step-by step guide on how to build your authority and it centers around setting up a website and blog, nothing could be easier, even if you are not a tech. geek. This type of small business venture is extremely ego-friendly too.

I find this kind of entrepreneurship especially useful for parents at home. Just think about the number of highly skilled moms and dads at home enjoying parenthood, but wishing at the same time they could stay on top of their professional game. This is a fun, flexible way to stay involved and great for any CV should you ever want to go back to work for someone else – although I doubt that very much.

Long before you make it into the top 100 blogs of just about anything, you will find people willing to pay you money for ads, white papers, speaking at events, invite you to product launches, etc. – you will be an authority in your field, it’s just a question of time and passion.

You do not necessarily have to be that good at writing itself (look at me!), use a spell-checker – but be passionate about your topic and people will read your blog and respond. It is the a great feeling to communicate with your readers world-wide.

One final point, blogs are being sold like hot-cakes for serious amounts of money these days, do not under estimate the selling potential of a venture like this!

So just one question then – what are you an Authority in – tell me, I will read it? Setup and running cost for this, $20/£10 per month. ST.

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Technorati Broken Again!

Oct 26, ’07 6:42 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Blogging, Comments

It is a shame, that Technorati still has not manage to get things sorted out, it is not working again, and I wonder how long they can go on like this, before everyone just walks away?

  • I emailed them a few days ago about missing links – no reply!
  • They have been missing links for weeks and month!
  • Today my blog is not being updated at all, even after manual ping requests!

The service level is bad, and the support level not much better – technorati what is going on? ST.

UPDATE Oct. 27, 2007 – 07:35 BST: Needless to say technorati is still not working, by accident I found this on their site:

Please excuse us! We are currently experiencing a few technical difficulties. All should be back up and running very soon. Thank you!

That’s it (?) – a another great example of customer care!

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The Small Business Blog Makes The Top 100 Business Blogs

Oct 26, ’07 8:27 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Blogging, News, SME-Blog, WinWeb

John Crickett compiled a “The Top 100 Business Blogs” list and I’m delighted to see, I made it to position 70 – he says:

“…… I’ve gathered together a list of what I believe are the Top 100 Business Blogs on the Internet. ….. The blogs are listed in order of their Technorati rankings (T), their Alexa rankings (A) are show as well. “

John defines a Business blog as “one that provides business ideas, advice, commentary or feedback on business in general.” He’s excluded sites that he feels are primarily a news based site or that is merely posting content from other sources and sites that are too new or have not been updated for over a month.

I would like to thank John for his work, here is his list – the rankings are correct at the time of posting:

  1. Copy Blogger T: 36 A: 7,825
  2. Seth Godin T: 47 A: 10,314
  3. MicroPersuasion T: 169 A: 33,643
  4. How To Change The World T: 180 A: 14,709
  5. Freelance Switch T: 312 A: 10,638
  6. A VC T: 1,226 A: 27,737
  7. Rough Type T: 1,253 A: 69,429
  8. Successful Blog T: 1,432 A: 44,935
  9. Small Business Canada T: 1,517 A: N/A
  10. David Allen, Getting Things Done T: 1,549 A: 53,592
  11. Springwise T: 1,913 A: 23,858
  12. Small Biz Trends T: 2,155 A: 63,364
  13. Fast Company T: 2,310 A: 12,141
  14. Instigator Blog T: 2,477 A: 58,816
  15. Occam’s Razor T: 2,548 A: 45,541
  16. Smart Wealthy Rich T: 2,879 A: 79,415
  17. eMoms At Home T: 3,443 A: 27,125
  18. Escape from Cubicle Nation T: 3,467 A: 202,751
  19. The Marketing Technology Blog T: 3,496 A: 47,038
  20. Business Pundit T: 3,724 A: 114,669
  21. The Engaging Brand T: 4,404 A: 433,644
  22. Influential Marketing Blog T: 4,779 A: 98,886
  23. Drew McLellan – The Marketing Minute T: 4,820 A: 129,669
  24. The Digerati Life T: 4,873 A: 53,353
  25. Success From The Nest T: 4,908 A: 95,008
  26. Business Blog Consulting T: 5,186 A:237,901
  27. Church Of The Customer T: 5,576 A: 250,201
  28. Todd And T: 5,643 A: 161, 019
  29. Net Business Blog T: 5,936 A: 36,107
  30. Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing T: 6,583 A: 92,784
  31. Bootstrapper T: 7,497 A: 50,304
  32. About.com Entrepreneurs T: 7,797 A: N/A
  33. Blogtrepreneur T: 7,897 A: 53,011
  34. Branding & Marketing T: 8,200 A: 710,326
  35. Duct Tape Marketing T: 8,985 A: 31,714
  36. Simplenomics T: 10,252 A:288,753
  37. Freelance Folder T: 10,543 A: 63,590
  38. Business Opportunities Weblog T: 11,018 A: 16,213
  39. HELLO, My Name Is Blog T: 11,395 A: 422,218
  40. Self Made Minds T: 11,704 A: 39,719
  41. Sox First T: 12,894 A: 994,161
  42. Young Go Getter T: 14,239 A: 45,373
  43. Trust Matters T: 15,462 A: 58,403
  44. Small Biz Survival T: A: 18,074 A: 875,069
  45. The Personal MBA T: 19,207 A: 142,649
  46. The Entrepreneurial Mind T: 21,958, A: 155,166
  47. Blog Business World T: 23,025 A: 252,405
  48. Working At Home On The Internet T: 23,247 A: 423,900
  49. Biz Informer T: 24,631 A: 904,745
  50. EmpowerWomenNow T: 25,837 A: 117,085
  51. Biz Plan Hacks T: 27,048 A: 1,335,732
  52. CreateBusinessGrowth T: 32,949 A:197,290
  53. Business Opportunities and Ideas T: 33,205 A: 282,805
  54. The KISS Business T: 35,496 A: 621,082
  55. Startup Spark T: 35,747 A: 386,949
  56. Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing Blog T: 41,092 A: 467,418
  57. MindPetals T: 41,714 A: 128,487
  58. Marketing Deviant T: 43,764 A: 281,072
  59. Go Big Network T: 44,842 A: 25,303
  60. Cool Business Ideas T: 49,679 A: 187,126
  61. Neville’s Financial Blog T: 52,048 A: 140,296
  62. Atlantic Canada’s Small Business Blog :T 52,589 A: 795,253
  63. College Startup T: 53,143 A: 184,398
  64. Reflections Of A Biz Driven Life T: 79,365 A: 361,398
  65. Branding Blog T: 93,462 A: 1,110,518
  66. Carnival Of The Capitalists T: 93,462 A: 1,897,375
  67. Young Entrepreneur T: 104,933 A: 26,491
  68. Marketing Genius T: 132,066 A: 2,222,119
  69. Better For Business T: 137,774 A: 590,797
  70. The Small Business Blog T: 140,824 A: 577,490
  71. Focused Mind T: 162,356 A: 520,971
  72. Small Business Tips T: 166,367 A: 74,005
  73. Lifes Perspective T: 194,358 A: 179,801
  74. Business Opportunities Blog T: 199,700 A: 832,678
  75. The Savvy Entrepreneur T: 224,227 A: 391,147
  76. Egg Marketing Blog T: 231,062 A: 740,867
  77. The Franchise King Blog T: 273,240 A: 520,732
  78. Small Business Entrepreneur T: 317,977 A: 883,094
  79. The Great Startup Game T: 331,293 A: 421,492
  80. Work At Home Start Up Guide T: 345,597 A: 1,190,178
  81. Dorm Room Biz T: 360,865 A: 957,072
  82. Startup Blog T: 377,609 A: 2,552,189
  83. Open Inovators T: 395,824 A: 1,230,257
  84. Get Entrepreneurial T: 437,475 A: 446,085
  85. Bplans Blog T: 437,475 A: 1,373,525
  86. Stuff4Restaurants T: 461,534 A: 298,982
  87. Canadian Entrepreneur T: 484,461 A: 237,901
  88. Strategize T: 487,964 A: 2,856,731
  89. The Marketing Spot T: 587,893 A: 2,550,840
  90. The Ravings Of A Mad Entrepreneurial Scientist T: 587,893 A: 566,836
  91. More Than We Know T: 871,446 A: 2,964,420
  92. Solo Entrepreneur T: 1,212,405 A: 471,491
  93. Stuff4Business T: 1,391,575 A: 298,982
  94. Consultant Journal T: 4,262,598 A: 667,342
  95. Startup Addict Musings T: 4,446,976 A: 1,03390,690
  96. Edith Yeung T: 8,911,336 A: 125,290
  97. Boostrap Me T: 8,911,336 A: 550,348
  98. The Selling Sherpa T: Not Listed A: 772,292
  99. BizzBangBuzz T: Not Listed A: 1,484,797
  100. The Freestyle Entrepreneur T: Not Listed A: 1,519,518

This little list should keep you busy over the weekend, go and have a look. I’ll be checking out the competition. ;-) ST.

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Say something profound today.

Aug 24, ’07 8:51 AM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Blogging

If you can’t think of something to say, don’t worry – how about this:

  • Based on structural considerations, our physical distribution strategy broaden our horizons tpwards our platform robustness – or this -
  • In the final analysis, performance-based positioning energizes 24/7 architectures.

These examples and 40 million more are generated on the MBA Writer web-site by Mike Shor (Humor), he writes:

Automatically generate sentences ready for inclusion into your business memos without all of the thinking!!

Here you go b*** s*** at the press of a button, you can use it in your memos, emails (or not) it will impress the readers – as long as they don’t come back and ask you what that means. Don’t you hate that – because now you will have to think and work out what to say.

Thank you Mike, his is very funny – I love it – wait for my new found profoundness in my posts from now on. ;-)

Hat-Tip to Tim

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Blog Action Day About Our Environment

Aug 20, ’07 2:22 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Blogging, Comments, Green/Eco-Friendly, News, be eco-friendly

I just registered my blog to join in on the Blog Action Day for our Environment – if you have a blog – please do the same.

WinWeb will publish it’s ClimateByte™ Technology Guidelines – in connection with our software release 3.4 – early next month and we are pleased to be associated with this

BLOG ACTION DAY FOR OUR ENVIRONMENT On October 15th, 2007

when everyone should post something about green/environmental issues on their blog.

Please join us and be part of the solution. One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.

Hat-tip to the Chief Happiness Officer

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Why Blogging for Small Business and Business Star-Ups?

Aug 20, ’07 1:00 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Blogging, Development, Infrastructure, Marketing/PR, Office - IT, Relationships, Small Business / SOHO, Start-Up, WinWeb, bootstrap, grow your business, market and sell, start-up in business, use online IT

As I mentioned before, traditional business marketing is changing. TV, radio and print media are in decline, because more and more of our time is spent online, the convergence of all these entertainment technologies has been going on for over a decade now and for the time it all seems to be IP – Internet Protocol centric.

What has that to do with my small business(?) – you may ask. It is actually crucial for your small business to understand this trent so you can act on it and actually save some money, by not wasting it on the wrong advertising medium.

Your small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business, may have the greatest product or service, but if you can not make people find you and your products, your small business and business start-up is in trouble, before you even started. There are many parts to the successful small business puzzle and to prevent business failure – blogging could very well be one of them.

Every small business website should have a blog connected to it – needless to say that every small business without fail should have a website. It does not matter if you work globally or locally, a website and blog is a must, not just a nice to have.

A small business blog will help you with the following:

  • providing a platform for your small business to interact with your customers
  • getting real time feedback from your clients
  • provide additional information about your business, services and products
  • get your story told your way, offer some control of public opinion
  • create buzz about your business and products

It is easy to get a blog with your website hosting company or from WinWeb – you can be up and running in minutes. Hosting your own blog can be more technically demanding, but above all it will waste a lot of your valuable time – writing the articles (posts) for your blog is important – not running your server and blogging software.

Remember nobody is going to tell your story for you and nobody can tell your story better than you yourself.

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Have a nice day!

Aug 17, ’07 1:22 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Blogging, Comments

One for the weekend – had a bad day so-far or yesterday maybe? You should read the Dumb Little Man Blog with todays offering:

9 Ways to Have a Better Day than Yesterday

I love the post give it a go – you’ll like it!

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Advertising Disclosure!

Aug 4, ’07 7:19 PM
Author Stefan Töpfer (Editor) Categories Blogging, Comments

This is not about me disclosing to you that my company WinWeb is paying for this blog in terms of hardware, bandwidth, etc, no it is more about the double standards the “professionals” try to put on us “amateurs”.

Josh Catone on Read/WriteWeb is talking about “Blogging Ethics: When and What Should Bloggers Disclose?” – he says that:

“….You’ll never see, for example, Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News conclude a story about Ford Motor company by saying that Ford advertises on the NBC family of networks (which includes USA, Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, etc.). The New York Times doesn’t stop to disclose that the movie they’re reviewing has a display ad in their Arts section. In fact, the screenshot below depicts the Times’ Arts web page today. Notice the review of the “Bourne Ultimatum” right next to an advert for the very same movie. The review was favorable, and didn’t include any disclosures, but I don’t think anyone thinks that the paper was shilling for ad dollars. ….”

I believe as this debate shows bloggers are far more “professional” about this then the mainstream media is.

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