I’m seeing more and more of this -especially on tech sites. On the contact us page all they offer you is a form so that they can qualify you. What I don’t see is anything about where they are located, what they’re phone number is etc. For me, I want to know where you’re from. No particular reason -I just like to know. Sometimes you’re near other companies I know. It concerns me that you don’t want to divulge that information. God forbid I actually call before you vet me. Already I can see that dealing with these hidden companies…

Perhaps you are looking into setting up offices in a different country – or hope to. Or, maybe you’re hoping to connect better with staff or customers from a particular region. Photo Credit © Depositphotos.com/Mishchenko Whatever your reasons may be, learning a different language has many benefits for entrepreneurs. Besides business benefits, bilingualism is also good for your mental health. Studies have shown that bilingualism delays the onset of dementia. People who speak more than one language also process information more easily. Convinced and want to get started? Here are 5 places you can learn a new language for free, or…

When I first started online, one of the things that was taught to me was to put testimonials on dedicated opt-in pages. The whole idea is to treat these pages like a page where you sell an actual product. It’s quite interesting to see that even after all this time, this little case study shows that testimonials still help convert visitors into subscribers/leads. Not that I’m expecting anything drastically different. Just goes to show sometimes it isn’t about how fancy your opt-in is.

We all have this nagging feeling in the back of our heads. Is what we’re doing working? How would we know? It’s a fair question. As a (very) small business with two partners, no employees and several freelancers, the question whether digital advertising works is a resounding yes. In fact, I can’t imagine advertising anyway else. Online advertising is very friendly on the small-micro business budgets and it is immediately measurable. However, if you are a long time brick-mortar business or mid-sized business. I can understand the question. Here are 8 reasons why online advertising works, backed by research data. As much a…

You know the saying. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Planning however doesn’t come easily for some. Not sure about you, but I was never taught how to plan in when I was in school, which is rather unfortunate, but no fear. One way to start is with a good planner. Now we all have our favorites so it’s OK to continue using that. I use BlogEnergizer’s planner because content marketing is an integral part of our business and the planner is geared towards that. It also has useful information how to make the planner work best…

This is the million dollar question isnt’ it? We all want need people to buy or our businesses will die. Although we know more or less why and what triggers a sale, especially when we know our customers well, but understanding general trends can help us too. This infographic gives you some pretty interesting snapshots based on a shopper survey. One of the things I find really interesting is the percentage of people who won’t share about their purchase on social media. Just because social media is hot and you can doesn’t mean that it works. That reflects my own online shopping…

Earlier this year, Google announced that it will give websites with ssl certificates extra brownie points. Though it is only a small ranking factor, it is one nonetheless. Overall, this news has been well received. However, many small sites have worried about the cost of the certificates and the cost of implementation. The good news is, the cost of these certificates aren’t exactly prohibitive, they start from $10 but they can go up to thousands of dollars. $0 is of course much better. This week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has announced a new initiative to transfer the web from HTTP to…

I’m at the WebCamp Live event this weekend by Armand Morin, and each morning, Jim Howard opens the event. Jim and his wife Chris used to run a printing company and has helped many businesses with their branding. Their story is so very inspiring and Jim is a fabulous speaker. Today, he mentioned something that I’ve heard him say before. I’m so very glad to be reminded again. This is what he says…   Did you get that? “It’s never about how you start. It’s how you finish.” Right now, the end of the year is around the corner. Will you spend…

I don’t tire of quote images. Even collect them on Pinterest. I’m likely not the only one. Perhaps that is why images are the most shared posts on social media. Creating them is also simple and I’ve usually stuck with quotes but sometimes it can get a bit boring. Especially when all you post are the same old quotes others have created before. That’s why I like these quote image ideas by Kristi Hines. Love #1. That’s a bit like a mini infographic except it’s a whole lot easier, cheaper and faster to create. I know friends who use #2…

What do you do when you put up a landing page and find it doesn’t convert so well? Do you throw your hands up and say, I tried, but it didn’t work? I hope not. The right answer is to tweak it. Maybe the offer isn’t right – that’s of course a big one but there are other things besides the offer. Maybe people just feel lost, confused, or they don’t believe you. Oli Gardner of Unbounce outlines 6 things you can do to fix an underperforming landing page. I agree 100% with #1. #2 is what I struggle with…