I found this very interesting quote in someone’s signature whom I met on a business networking website:
"If you want to go fast, travel alone; but if you want to go far, travel together."
- African Proverb
How true - specially for software programming teams, which are so vulnerable due to individualistic goals. As if there is no tomorrow!
Do you send handwritten seasonal greetings to your clients?
It may sound to be very simple, regular stuff. But it is surprising that still a large percentage of small businesses fail to use such an opportunity to strengthen their relationship with their clients on a personal level. And when I casually asked some of the culprits about the big problem that restricts them from acknowledging their clients, this is their surprising relevation:
But, if you are doing this, you are missing out on a great opportunity to make a personal contact with the "core of your business (i.e. your clients)" and saying them "Thank you" for the business they have given you. Not only it makes them feel special, it keeps you on top of their mind at all times, which can lead to more word-of-mouth and references.
But, its never late.
I will recommend that you:
It makes your clients feel special and they remember you more often. And if they remember you more often, you get more business. Because timely recall and top-of-the-mind position will be the difference between you getting a deal over your competitor when the credentials, pricing and quality of service / product stands neck-to-neck.
Guys,
Recently some of my employees got unsolicited call from a gentleman called Manish Gupta, who wants to woo them away from my company to his startup. Of course like every normal human being, my colleagues also need a reason to go and work for a relatively unknown and small company. So they need convincing. And he did put up an argument to convince them…
And then came the bummer!
He thinks that my colleagues should work for his company because he has a bigger vision and everyone has a bright future with him. But how do people believe him? Simple - His was the runner-up of the Business Baazigar contest of Zee TV.
:D
I could not stop myself from laughing out at this humbleness.
Then I thought of doing some research on the business model and modus-operandi of his company. I found out that there was no innovation and no marketing strategy (mind you, he must have spent time in sales, but definitely not in marketing). He is selling the same old wine in the same old bottle with no value addition. There is no investment in human resource development, since the human resource policy is absolutely based on poaching.
Is this the vision, he is selling to my employees?
I wish him best of luck!
BTW, in all my humbleness, I will like to get my message across to Mr. Gupta that I have been on the jury panel of nationwide business plan contest (organized by one of the most reputed management institution in India), giving my inputs to several business baazigars who are working hard to build their dream company!
And yes, it does not hurt me anywhere. But it is sad to see this approach to business after getting the said recognition.
I hope he learn to differenciate, innovate and deliver!
And yes, I am fast losing faith in TV programs like Business Baazigar if this is the talent they have identified 
I came across this rocking website called EasyBM (www.easybm.com), a FREE online service, which can help you in boosting your online productivity to new levels. I generally do not get excited about something so quickly. My exposure to new ideas and business plans make me immune to general ideas. But I got excited by the simplicity of the idea and how it can make life simpler for everyone.
Enough of social bookmarks, lets get personal!
This is a personal bookmarking website which gives you a 1-click access to your favorite websites, thus acting as your portal to Internet in the true sense. (If you don’t believe me, check out the definition of portal). When you note a site URL on your private bookmarks page, only you can to access that shortcut. Your favorite sites appear on a password protected page and a result, only you (or someone you allow access to) can see which sites you have bookmarked. So these bookmarks become your personal bookmarks!
Social bookmarking is a great way to find and recommend interesting sites. But let us face the fact - You don’t want to share all the information with everyone out there on the web. Let us consider some scenarios:
I am sure you will not like to share these website links with everyone out there! But, you do access them everyday - every time. So what do you do? The answer is simple - Personal Bookmarking.
Don’t we have personal bookmarking in our browsers?
Now, you might think - Every web browser has personal bookmarking feature built in - then why do I need a service like EasyBM. Let me tell you - you still do need them for these simple reasons:
And above all, you still need to click on "Favorites" and scroll down to the right site and click on that when you use a browser bookmark. So it is good for things that you do not need every-now-and-then! But EasyBM (once set as your homepage) opens with those selected bookmarks every time you open a new browser and is simply a click away!
I wish easyBM all the best and I am sure this nice little idea can make positive change to the way people use Internet.
P.S.: BTW, this is not a paid review. I don’t do them. I only write about something when I really like it.
<META DESCRIPTION> tag lost its shine after the emergence of off-page factors (like link popularity) for rankings in SERPS. In fact it lost its purpose to a great extent when Google started using contextual content from within the page as the description of the URL in its SERPS.
However in an interesting turn of events, <META DESCRIPTION> is back in business!
Most search engines, including Google are now using the <META DESCRIPTION> content as the description of the URL in their SERPS. The page <TITLE> is now being shown as the listing title with <META DESCRIPTION> as the description of the URL. If you compare it with Google AdWords, you can consider the <TITLE> as the Headline and <META DESCRIPTION> as the Description. Therefore, you must use it to outline your strength, your unique selling proposition and if possible your offer.
Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal mentioned cited this interesting Meta Description used by NextStudent.com in his article,
Looking for federal or private student loans for School? Get up to 40k Fast: Call 877-680-9879. Student loan consolidation? Call 800-299-4639. NextStudent- College Funding Made Simple.
You can also include your phone number (as cited in the above advertisement - description) for the prospect who is in a hurry! May be you will end up prospecting without having the visitor hit your website! In fact, with the latest version of IE and the FireFox plugins, the phone numbers listed in this description become hot-links, which a visitor can simply click and get connected on a voice call through Skype. And you can close a sale! 
And yes, many SEO specialists believe that higher CTR on your SERPS listing (due to improved <TITLE> and <META DESCRIPTION>) can help you further improve your rankings.
BTW, I forgot to mention that some expert copywriters may like to even put in their headlines and teasers to pre-sell the product / services!
Lisa Ditlefsen says:
Basically if you think about it the meta description tag is your FREE ad! If you have experience in running a pay per click campaign I’m sure you have put a lot of thought into what the PPC ad says. The ad is what distinguish you from all the other PPC ads right? So why should it be any different in the organic SERPs? The title tag is your free headline and the meta description tag is your FREE ad, this is where you have a chance to ad hook someone in. How many times have you searched for something, got to the results and been put off by the description, it can’t possibly be what you were looking for!!?
May be people do not give so much importance to this FREE ad, because it is FREE! It is never late. Give proper attention to your website <META DESCRIPTION> tags and turn your organic traffic to a highly targeted FREE traffic.
In a fast changing world of SEO, the best way to keep your knowledge up-to date are the authoritative blogs on the subject.
I stumbled upon a nice post by Daniel from DailyBlogtips.com, who has done a thorough research and listed Top 25 SEO Blogs. He has considered various factors including Google Pagerank of the blog, Alexa Rank, Number of Bloglines subscribers and the Technorati Authority Rank to get a holistic comparison and derive his list.
The list was prepared and posted on 23rd July 2007.
Click here to check out The Top 25 SEO Blogs list.
Just a random thought:
Programmers are supposed to use their programming skills to automate business process for their clients. Therefore, a good programmer should be one, who takes an initiative of automating his own work and never repeats the line of code he has written once Charity begins at home!
Unfortunately I have hardly seen many such souls.
What do you think?
When creating an exhaustive keyword list for your AdWords / PPC campaigns, you might face a tedious job of creating all possible combinations by joining two words / phrases to cover the keyword that your prospect might key in. This can be a very frustrating experience.
Recently, I sumbled upon this website: http://www.imscripts.com/keywords
It can generate these keyword combinations in less than a second.
So if the keywords are:
And the cities are:
This tool will create these keywords:
web design kolkata
kolkata web design
web design company kolkata
kolkata web design company
web design chennai
chennai web design
web design company chennai
chennai web design company
web design chennai
chennai web design
web design company chennai
chennai web design company
So you could get valid and useful combinations!
Now think how much time this tool can save when you have to make a combination of 100s of keywords with 10-20 different "add on words" or "cities". So use this tool whenever you need to create the combinations!
This tool can also help by adding the {} and " " operators of Google Adwords if you want.
I regularly hear about terms like Manager, Managing, Management, Management Team, etc. The dictionary term for manage is "cope: come to terms or deal successfully with" and "pull off: be successful; achieve a goal"
In my opinion, the word ‘manage‘ makes me think about:
Somewhere it reflects a sense of compulsion, where someone else is setting the goal for you. It sounds like "ensure that it stays on track". I somehow find managing limits a person and his role to retain the lead.
Therefore, to get the lead, you need leaders!
Leaders are a different breed. They manage less. Instead, they lead.
The word ‘lead’ makes me visualize
When I think of a leader, I visualize someone who:
So, to build / grow a company, you need leader(s). And to manage one, you need managers! Mostly, leaders are not good managers and they should not overstretch themselves for that role.
Leaders are like creators.
Managers are like Accumulators.
You cannot run a company without either. So make sure that your company has both!
The bids on AdWords are soaring to new heights everyday. Some advertisers are even shelling out up to $10 per click. So, naturally the question arises - Is this complete madness or is there any logic behind such aggressive advertising?
To me, it does make some sense to bid aggressively if you have the right strategy in place. These are two scenarios you can consider:
1) Every client you acquire, on an average spends $12000 with you in a year. In this case, you do not mind spending 10% of the revenue as customer acquisition cost. Therefore you can comfortably bid $10 per click (provided you have a site which can convert 1 out of 120 visitors). Thus, looking at a lifetime value of a customer makes it a good investment.
2) If you have mastered the art of persuasion (or have hired a master of persuasion), and have come up with a website with converts well (visitor > customer conversion), every visitor you are driving to your website is equivalent to revenue . So go ahead, rock the boat and bid out all your competitors. You will get more customers and will also have lower customer acquisition cost. What more do you want?
So, expensive keywords bidding do work, if they are backed with high lifetime customer value and/or higher conversion on the website. And yes, those Internet marketing experts are not insane! In fact most of them are very smart.
So bid smartly!