A new series of articles about how and why your off line business should be online too has just started on the 411 Blogging Guide website.  The first article is called "What Is The Internet?".  And it outlines what and why you could use the Internet to expand your business.

Remember the Internet has been around for a number of years.  It's reach is global.  In today's environment it is important that your business have an Internet presence.

This is a great place to start thinking about how and why to put your business online.

Until the next time,

Craig Childs

Craig Childs
Toronto Ventures LLC
10004 Wurzbach Road, #153
San Antonio, TX 78230
210-595-9304

Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog

Keywords and keyword phrases are an important tool people can use to find your site or product.  So you want to incorporate them into your web site.

People use keywords and keyword phrases to search the Internet to find answers to their questions.  If you can answer their question you want to be found by them.

For more information about keywords go to our article on keywords.

Until the next time,

Craig Childs

Craig Childs
Toronto Ventures LLC
10004 Wurzbach Road, #153
San Antonio, TX 78230
210-595-9304

Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog

We have started to write some articles and placing them on pages on a sister site.  The first set of articles will be found under "How to Create  an Online Business".

Today's article is all about branding your online business.  It's called "What is Corporate Branding and Why Should I Care?" And it discusses how and why you should plan your branding early in you Internet Business.

Until the next time,

Craig Childs

Craig Childs
Toronto Ventures LLC
10004 Wurzbach Road, #153
San Antonio, TX 78230
210-595-9304

Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog

Acquire New Customers

Acquiring new customers off line and on line can be a challenge. But the first test for acquiring new online customers is to know what you have to offer.

What do you have to offer?

Not only what it is but what problems dose is solve for your customers? From the customers point of view how does is answer their question - What's In It For Me? You must understand how and what your product does to answer that question.

Who are your customers?

Next you must know who your customers are? What are their sex? How much income do they make? What are their hobbies, wants and needs? Where do they live? What are they afraid of? How does your product respond to these customers?

The better you understand your customers and how your product answers the question of what's in it for me. And finally what need does it fill for your customer. The more successful you will be. Wither you have a local business or an international business the process is similar.

You must find them and then meet their needs to be successful.

Until the next time,

Craig Childs

Craig Childs
Toronto Ventures LLC
10004 Wurzbach Road, #153
San Antonio, TX 78230
Direct: 210-370-7460
Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the process by which you find the terms you current customers and potential customers will use to find your web site. Remember that the keywords are those terms people place in the search box of their favorite search engine to find something they are looking for.

So Why am I Doing Keyword Research?

You want to write posts and pages that use your real and potential customers search terms in the titles and in to body of the post or page. You want to find one or two search terms to use per post or page. And you want the keyword density for those terms to be between 2% and 4%.

What is Keyword Density?

Keyword density is the percentage of time your keyword(s) show up per 100 words. And you want a density of 2-4%. That means that for every 100 words the keyword term shows up between 2 and 4 times.

This will help the search engines find your post or page and then show it in the search results.

Until the next time,

Craig Childs

Craig Childs
Toronto Ventures LLC
10004 Wurzbach Road, #153
San Antonio, TX 78230
Direct: 210-370-7460
Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog

You have a business presence online and you have product(s) to sell. Now you are going to encounter some customer questions. Just like you would have questions from your off line business. These questions can range from simple to complex. They can involve returns to shipping questions. No matter what type of questions your customers have, you need to respond to them.

What is the best way to manage customer service issues when you have an online business? That depends upon how responsive you want to be.

You can set up an online live chat (audio or text). You can have a telephone number to handle all service issues. You have have a help desk or just use email (special email address for service issues only). So how important are these service issues to your business? And what are the service expectations of your customers?

You need to first set the service expectations for your customers. They need to know how and when to contact you. You need to set those limits and have them displayed prominently on your web site for your customers to see and use.

I recommend that you don't use email alone. It can lead to a lot of spam. I prefer a help desk. The help desk plus hours of operation and response time can go a long way to satisfying your customers concerns. If you had a knowledge base (FAQ) to the help desk, common questions can be answered immediately. Plus you can outsource the help desk if you desire.

No matter what you do, be sure to set reasonable service expectations and then stick to them.

Until the next time,

Craig Childs
Online Bricks