Small Business Guides to Using the Internet for Business

Back in the day, I had to work hard to talk my small business clients into using the internet for business. Wary of something new and unclear on the benefits, they hemmed and hawed and often just said, “No”.

These days, most small businesses understand that the web is an important business tool that can be used to help them reach their goals. This is mostly due to the web’s now proven ability to enable:

Businesses to either reach new customers in higher numbers and more places than ever before or to focus in and drive local traffic to their locations;
A company to sell their existing products and services, as well as new types of products and services, through online marketplaces which dwarf the size and scope of offline options; and
Smaller businesses to compete by leveling the playing field with affordable and scalable online software solutions that offer features and functionality which only big companies were able to play with in the past.

What’s the Catch?

Unfortunately, there’s a big gap between deciding to use the internet for business and actually doing so.

That’s because the web is chock-full of great solutions, tools and approaches, each of which can help you reach your goals and many of which can be applied using a multitude of approaches.

Faced with the sheer number of viable options from which to choose, many small business owners quickly become overwhelmed, frustrated and discouraged. The benefits of using the internet for business are clear and compelling; the path for reaching their goals is cloudy and confused.

Help is Here!

If you’re one of the folks who feel lost on their internet journey, then I have great news for you! This week, I created a “Small Business Guides” page on my site and added my first 4 guides.

Each Matt About Business small business guide is aimed at helping you figure out how to use the internet to achieve your business goals.

So head on over and take a look to see if one of my guides can help you select the best path for reaching your goals.

Weekly Link Roundup

Each week, I collect the 10 best posts that I’ve read and share them with you here.

These posts focus on web-based solutions, online resources and up-to-date news for small businesses.

Enjoy!

The Most Common Business Blogging and SEO Mistake in the World: Love this practical post on improving the effectiveness of you search engine optimization efforts.

3 Developments that are Sabotaging the Social Media Movement : It seems as if social media overload has landed us in a bit of a rut. This post explores the issue and discusses ways to revitalize your social media efforts.

Informative Infographic and Data Visualization Websites: If you’re an infographic junkie like me, then you’ll love following all the links in this post.

Here are two posts from Entrepreneur Magazine on using the web for market research:

How to Use Social Media for Research and Development: There are many ways to use social media for market research (including the approach I discussed in my post, “How to Market Research on Twitter”). This post provides details on two approaches you can use.

Five Affordable Consumer Research Tools: A handy list of online solutions to use for conducting market research.

2 Infographics to Explain Why Small Businesses are Turning to the Cloud: Small businesses are increasingly embracing the cloud and software-as-a-service (SAAS). Some interesting data here.

Top PaaS, SaaS and IaaS Cloud Companies by CloudTimes: A list of the top players in the cloud.

63 conversion tips from Conversion Conference London: A great addition to my post from last week, “How to Sell More on the Internet by Increasing Your Website Conversion Rate”.

7 Killer Tools to Boost Sales in 2012: Mostly online tips for extending the reach and effectiveness of your sales efforts.

6 Common SEO Mistakes On Small Business Websites: Some less-commonly discussed, yet solid, search engine optimization tips for small business websites.