We believe Midland American Capital is a great factoring solution for businesses is because they are focused on being a longterm partner with their clients and have knowledgeable development officers who can help businesses understand factoring clearly. Midland provides invoice factoring services for a broad range of industries from Distributors to Technology Providers.

Screen view of Midland American's website homepage

Banner advertising may not be the most cost effective form of advertising for small businesses however. Pay Per Click advertising (especially that of Google’s Adwords program) has completely turned the advertising industry upside down. PPC ads can be hyper-targeted and easy to manage. They have a low commitment for small business owners and marketing companies, which gives advertisers flexibility to create, study and learn from their campaigns–ultimately making the format more appealing. It should be noted, that banner advertising has been adopted into the Google Adwords program.

Statistically, banner advertising is the most expensive of all common forms of customer acquisition. From a cost standpoint, it can exceed even traditional media.

Niche Banner Advertising Deals
A gem in the rough
On the other hand, there can be some great deals for banner ads from small websites and newsletters, which may contradict the general stats. For example, smaller website owners or webmasters running their own banner advertising programs may provide interesting deals or access to a unique and useful market, which could be helpful to a small business advertiser. Such gems can be challenging to find and can take quite a bit of time researching. One idea would be to find websites or blogs that have the right quality and kind of traffic but currently do not carry advertising. Make an offer to the website owner.

Finding a banner ad network
For established banner ad websites, consider using a banner ad network. Examples of such networks include: AdCritic, Adotas, DoubleClick, Google AdWords, or even the WebbyAwards.

Formats
Paid online advertising can come in a variety of forms, including:

• Static banner ads — in a variety of sizes
• Animated GIF or Flash ads
• Rich media, which could include sound or video
• Pop-ups and pop-unders ( boooo, these can be very annoying to users)
• Interstitial — appear as user links between pages
• Expandable or take-over ads – ads that grow or cover content on a page

Selling online can be a neccessity for some businesses for all the reasons mentioned above. Below is a list of the essential components for a robust, online store.

Essential eCommerce components

• Product catalog. You must have an organized store unless you have only a few products. Navigation within your product catalog should be clear and browsable
• Product attributes. Customers need to learn and study the product prior to purchase. These attributes are generally accepted as a must: product name, category, description, price, and photo / image.
• Check out. The eCommerce checkout needs to provide a way to take payment, append relevant taxes (if necessary), compute shipping and handling costs, provide a sub-total of the amount due, collect billing and shipping information
• Reporting & order tracking. For small stores, you can rely on Paypal or Google Checkout for the order tracking and customer info collection. Larger more robust stores will be better off with a way to store all customer information and be aware when orders come in. Some stores have a way to track the status of the order through the fulfillment and shipping stages.
• For non-remote payments (like Paypal and Google Checkout), security is vital. You must consider the use of encryption HTTPS, at a minimum.

Other eCommerce options

• Inventory systems
• Point of sale connections. For example, connect and interact with RMS
• Product popularity rating
• Featured products to be dynamically displayed on high-trafficked pages
• Suggested products for cross site marketing
• CRM capabilities – tracking and reporting on customers
• Discounts or coupons
• Live UPS, FedEx or USPS automatic rate calculator – and product dimension and weight attributes
• Limit orders to specific countries

Guidelines for writing a press release

Here are a few points to consider to keep the quality of your press releases high:

• Cover the who, what, where and why of the story–basics of journalism. Try to make the job of journalists easier and they may reward you with a story
• Make sure you use spell check. Yes, this may seem obvious, but many businesses forget the basics when trying to turn out a media or ad piece.
• Test all links that are included in your press release
• Make sure that your lead sentence has a captivating hook–remember many readers scan content before committing to a full read
• Write a concise but interesting headline. Ten words should do fine.
• Make sure to include the date of your press release. News has an expiration date. Don’t let your readers guess or mistake your press release for old news.
• Provide contact information

For small businesses, blogging can be a great way to build visibility. As you write great content, other authors and readers may begin to follow your blog and respond to your posts. This can be an excellent way to find new clients or attract talent. Your blog articles can be a great way to elegantly and indirectly advertise your business through social platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.  It can also establish your business as an authority within a niche or field related to your core industry.

For large businesses and corporations, blogging can be a fantastic way to talk about new services or products and give a comfortable and less formal, inside view of the innovations of the company. Blogging can be more interesting for users because of it’s freedom from dry formality. Corporate leaders and staff can use blogging to build a relationship with users and quickly respond to and address their needs. It is vital for users/customers to feel like they are being listened to and understood. Blogging can also be a way to give companies a greater visibility to other organizations, partners and in tangential markets. Polls, feedback forms, star ratings and other user inputs can also give larger companies a way to understand user needs and desires–as companies collect feedback based on topics and announcements during the innovation life-cycle.

Goal-setting for business bloggers

• As your team questions the value of blogging, you should first answer the simple question: Is blogging simply a passing interest for your team? Can your team really commit to the platform and process and maintain it longterm?
• Define a main purpose for each blog. By defining a purpose, you prevent writers block and also don’t let readers feel confused. Having a focus keeps content, thoughts and topics focused on the business purpose of the blog–it also helps you define the value of the blog and the time commitments of blogging clear to key stakeholders.
• Create a content plan: Start by writing a list of topics and categories that your blog will cover. Try to draft a schedule of how frequently your business can and should publish content on the blog. Assign resources to this content plan (see next).
• Commit the right resources to the blog. If your business begins to blog, you need to account for the time it takes to construct and edit posts. Remember your blog speaks on behalf of your organization so quality is important. Start by creating a content plan, which outlines the topics your blog will focus on and who in the organization will write the articles and when. Make sure that blogging fits within the writer’s workload–don’t over commit or let the blog fall by the wayside.
• To advertise or not: If you are blogging for business, you need to question whether the amount of money you can make from advertising is worth it. You can always do a test run with advertising and measure it’s impact. Also, go back to your original purpose for blogging, does advertising distract from or cloud that purpose. For example, if your purpose was to inform a user on the advantages of using your product, then advertising the products or other companies would potentially harm the core purpose of the blog.

One of the best ways to represent your business on Facebook is to create a page for your business. Previously, pages were focused on the relationship between fans and celebrities–when a user would subscribe to page, the button and action was referred to as becoming a “fan.” Facebook thoughtfully changed this dynamic to focus on businesses, causes and organizations, using the Like button. The Like button significantly increased the performance of this tool–as users are more apt to Like a page rather than become a fan of a page. We, at Kentucky Business Network, noticed a tremendous increase in traffic for our members when the Like button was introduced. Subscriptions to pages has increased and social media driven traffic to destination websites has grown considerably.

Once you create a Facebook page for your business, it is important to continue to improve and use the tool to get value out of the tool. Here are some helpful tips for improving your business page on Facebook.

• Make it attractive: Just like your destination website for your business, your Facebook page needs personal attention. Make it attractive. Use images and your company logo to help it stand out. Try to introduce color to the page to improve the aesthetics. Create a lasting impression that helps to attract new users and loyal customers. Remember, users most often are on Facebook for fun and to connect with friends. You need to make your business page appealing and intriguing.
• Keep updating and interacting: It is vital that you keep making updates to your business page to make it interesting to users. Make updates on a regular basis. If you need to, create a schedule that integrates with your work schedule–set aside some time for social media marketing.
• Don’t spam — instead keep dialogue conversational: Remember Facebook is a social website, so your business should be social rather than too pitch-y. Try to make content and announcements interesting to users–don’t just throw products and pitches at them. Facebook is a great opportunity to make your business capture new leads and build loyalty.
• Call to action: Even though your tone should not be a hard sell, you still need to have a call to action. Make sure that you have links to your website, your business address/location and other contact info. On your landing page, encourage users to Like you–which is a subscription to your page.

• By 2010 Generation Y will outnumber Baby Boomers. 96% of Generation Y have joined a social network. Source: Grunwald Associates National Study
• Social Media such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube has overtaken porn as the top activity on the web. Source: Huffington Post
• The percentage of companies using LinkedIn as their primary source for finding new employees is 80%. Source: Jobvite Social Recruitment Survey

Video source: Socialnomics.net |  Vimeo

Read more: Part one: Social media and web marketing techniques

The fastest growing and simplest way to market your business is by using social networking techniques for marketing.  This term encompasses a variety of methods and is also referred to as Internet Marketing or Social Media.  Some examples are:

1.    Blogging: Many businesses choose to utilize internet marketing by creating and maintaining a blog.  Content should be updated regularly to keep visitors coming back, and can include online discount coupons and special offers for your internet customers.  This form of social media is particularly suited to providing a personal touch to your marketing strategy since the tone of blogs is often informal.

2.    E-mail marketing: Many small business owners ask their customers to voluntarily provide their e-mail addresses and will then send updates, advance notice on sales or special promotions, and coupons.  This is not to be confused with spam, which is unsolicited e-mail and should be avoided as an online marketing tool.

3.    Social Networking Accounts:  Establishing a page on a social media site such as Facebook can increase your business’s exposure dramatically.  This form of marketing may also include a Twitter account for more up-to-the-minute updates on your business.

4.    Website: One of your most vital marketing tools today is a company website.  Potential customers no longer flip through voluminous phone books to find the business or service they are looking for.  Their first choice is usually a search engine that will point them to your website.  This form of online marketing requires striking a balance between eye-catching design and utility and ease of navigation. Business owners that are strapped for cash and whose first time it is for owning a website may look for template options, but with some more experience, a small business owner may later hire a web design company to provide better branding, stronger design, integrated social media and clean coding.

Internet marketing is no longer considered to be in its infancy and there are now many outstanding opportunities to grow a small business with the proper targeting of social networking techniques.  Business owners in Kentucky know that any form of marketing is dependent on knowing your intended customers and customizing your strategy to reach them. Social networking techniques for marketing are no different in this regard but have the advantage of often being able to be implemented with less money and provide higher returns than traditional marketing methods.

This article will help:

1. Business owners understand the benefits of purchasing an established website
2. Signs to identify bad investments in ready-made websites (or web businesses)
3. Where to buy an established website or web business

Why would I want to buy an existing website rather than just build my own?
Some business owners might prefer to start from scratch and build a new website by hiring a web design company or freelance web designer. However, there can be a few draw backs to building a website from scratch. One is cost. Depending on the type of website that you want to build and the quality of coding and design, it can turn into a relatively costly process. Granted the cost of building a website will vary between companies, quality, timeframe, experience of the designer, and reputation. In many cases, a lower cost website may not be better for your small business–as a website can be one of the most important marketing devices a small business owns and uses. Another downside of creating a brand new website is timing.  It can take quite a bit of time to build a quality website. For example, it took one of our members about three weeks to build a static website, because they decided to purchase extra time to refine their design (look and feel) and get the messaging right. Most web design companies will charge for extra rounds of revisions during the design process.

Purchasing a ready made website can be a quick way to enter the market.
Purchasing a ready-made website or web business can allow you to speed up the process of “going to market.” Granted, you may need to clean up a few things or add new content to the purchased website. Also, you will need to ensure that the website that you are purchasing is quality. (See below for quality assurance testing of ready made websites).  In many cases, when you purchase a website, you will have a chance to view the design of the site, wade through the site content and get some facts about it. In this way, you will know what you are buying and can select a site or web business that will give you a head start. Many companies struggle with starting a new website because writing content can take a lot of time–and content production can cause web projects to miss their deadlines. The editing process can be tough, at times. Also, some websites that are for sale may already have traffic, search engine prominence or even revenue… which will give you a leg up from other start-ups.

What are some common signs that a website is poor quality or a bad investment?

• Double check to see if the website is committing gross copyright violations
• Too many links? Make sure the website isn’t over linking, which can cause penalties in Google and other search engines.
• Make sure the site has quality content!
• Click through the site and look for broken pages, elements and links
• Make sure the website accurately reflects the market you wish to enter

Background checks and quality assurance for purchasing a website
Hiring a web strategy company can help you identify whether a website is quality by doing an SEO and website audit before finalizing the purchase. Spending a few hundred dollars to hire a web strategy company can save you a lot of time and money down the road.

What are some factors that may demonstrate high quality within a for sale website?

• Content, content, content: Good content goes a long way!
• Page ranking: Google uses a ranking system to measure the strength of a page within search engines. You may not need a ready high page rank, but it certainly can help.
• Good design: clear and interesting (or just simple) design can really make or break a website. Bad design can certainly contribute to a website’s failure.

Where can I purchase a ready made website?

• eBay: search for “websites for sale”
• flippa.com – an online marketplace for buying and selling websites
• marketplace.sitepoint.com/ — a marketplace for established websites and existing web businesses.

KY Architects

Architection
Louisville, Kentucky
(502) 561-1024

Architectural Group International, Inc.
Covington, Kentucky
(859) 261-5400

Campbell & Associates, PLLC
Versailles
(859) 879-0235

JRA Architects
Lexington
(859) 252-6781

LHB Architect, PSC
Elizabethtown, KY
(270) 982-2724

Shawn Walker and Associates
Ashland, KY
(606) 324-3117

Weber Group
Louisville, KY
(502) 899-3969

Resources for architects

Kentucky Board of Landscape Architects
The Kentucky Board of Landscape Architects is an independent state agency whose purpose is to protect the public by administering and enforcing the rules and regulations that govern the practice of Landscape Architecture in the state of Kentucky.
klarb.ky.gov

Kentucky Board of Architects
The Kentucky Board of Architects was established by the 1930 Act of the Kentucky General Assembly to protect the public health, safety and well being by the regulation of practicing architects.
boa.ky.gov