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How Has The Economy Affected Your Business?

Has the blow-back from the US economic crisis affected your business yet?

If so what pull-back approach are you taking?

Are you cutting advertising as a result of efforts to trim costs?

Have your client account payments been affected?

These are just a few of the questions that small business owner such as myself and my clients are discussing. I had one client tell me that his own client base had just simply stopped paying on time. We have experienced several client situations where we have had to turn client accounts over for collection for the first time in eight years.

In a tough economy, such as ours, it is important to keep a cool head and focus on your business longevity. Many of us will be able to weather this storm and come out stronger, unlike some industries such as the real estate and the mortgage industry, where the crisis is so deep that some firms are being driven out of business.

So what do you do when times are tough for your business? One quick comment, it is not the US alone, but a global issue. I have chatted with several contemporaries in Spain and the United Kingdom who are experiencing many of the same issues that we are in the US in regards to draw-down and pull-back.

This is what my firm is doing:

1. Getting very proactive with slow payers to bring them into line with our payment terms.

2. Working with a collection agency for the first time in eight years to collect accounts over 90 days old.

3. Reviewing carefully our spending history. This is not necessarily a time to just routinely upgrade software. I have purchased some upgrades but made very careful selections, but others, I will defer to later or indefinitely.

4. Carefully reviewed my business profitability. If I cannot offer a service profitably, I have dropped it or realigned it to be profitable; factoring in the cost of credit card processing and overhead has been extremely important in some of my most recent decisions in regards to pricing models.

5. Stopped doing business with clients that simply will not pay on time and sap my available time with collection efforts.

What have you done to keep you business afloat in these trying times? Click add your comment below and leave me a note. I would be most interested in hearing what you are doing to move your business forward.

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Domain Name Ending School

The most popular domain name endings are .com, .org, and .us. But most of us without thinking will enter .com if we do not know the ending first. But did you know that the endings are actually meant for certain business sectors?

.com is for anyone

.org is typically reserved for non profits

.net is typically reserved for Internet communicators firms and telecommunications

However with the glut of website all this has been turned on its ear when a business cannot find its name in it preferred .com state. If you choose a domain ending other than .org and you are non profit, will you get a legal note demanding that you change. No, of course not, but I recommend that you check first to see if you can find your domain name with the correct – best business practices ending first, and then look outward to other domain name endings.

If your domain name is not available as a .com, I suggest considering the .us (if you are a US business), a .biz, or the new .pro (if you are a lawyer or other licensed professional). It is always best to try to stay within ICANN guidelines on domain names, but with the few .com’s that are still available you may need to consider branching out.

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AdWords Escalating Costs Force Advertisers to Yahoo

With the cost of Google AdWords for some markets and business escalating since the AdWords September 15th update, Yahoo is looking better all the time.

Here’s just one example of the many changes that we have seen happen this week since the September 15th AdWords update:

1. For bed bug extermination and bed bug related keywords in 2006 we paid around $1.25 per click, now to be competitive in the New York City market we are over $4.00 a click. Yahoo is still serving quality converting clicks for this account at about $1.65.

2. Here’s another example of the competition on AdWords since the update. For a dentist in the Washington DC metro area, Google states their account control panel that to appear in the firs page of search results they should now pay $57 per click for the phrase family dental care. Mind you, this is not to be in position one, but rather in position 11. What I don’t understand is that this same client has been getting clicks with Google showing the average ad position to be over 6 in the data and he is paying around $7 or so per click – so why the $57 note in the control panel?

3. Some accounts that we manage are totally being hammered with the update. One client who typically gets 70 to 80 conversions from Google each month is down to 20 so far month to date and we upped his cost per click twice since September 15th! Yahoo has brought in 16 conversions for him so far this month and at a significantly lower cost.

Yahoo is looking better all the time. In fact if you are not seriously contemplating advertising in Yahoo and trimming back your advertising in Google AdWords while this shakedown is occurring, it may be a good time to give it very serious consideration. I think that Google may have gotten too greedy in this last change and will be chasing out advertisers with these new cost per click figures to retain their desired average ad position.

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Getting on the Blog Band Wagon

If you have a website and do not have a blog, it is time for you to get on the blog band wagon. Savvy search engine optimization experts have been recommending blogs for the past year, but we know that a blog does a lot more for you than help with search engines.

Here’s why at McCord Web Services, we’re so bullish on blogs:

1. Blogs bring and build website traffic.

2. Blogs increase the stickiness of your website.

3. Blogs add new fresh content to your website – if your blog is posted under your domain.

4. Blogs build contextual authority on your topic for your website in the eyes of all top three search engines.

5. Blogs build topical entry pages that are keyword dense and on one topic that readers can use to find you and your services.

6. Blogs build interest with readers and can operate as a point of interaction between you and prospects.

7. Blog comments can build controversy and discussion on your selected topics where an open exchange is allowed.

8. Blog interaction, comments, and traffic let you know clearly the topics that your audience is interested in knowing more about allowing you to shape your services and products to your visitors needs.

9. Blogging is a very effective way to become different from your competition.

10. Blogging allows you to put a personal face on your business and to connect with others in a productive and interesting way.

You can review our white paper called “The Tangible Benefits of Blogging” or more really in-depth information.