http://compass.markethardware.com/blog Your resource for competing on the web Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:04:16 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en For local searches, Google is now including up to 10 business listings above the “organic” search results. For high-value search phrases, organic results are heavily biased against local businesses: large companies, yellow page publishers, directories, franchisors all have a huge advantage in generating the in-bound links that drive high search ... http://compass.markethardware.com/blog/2008/02/29/a-new-seo-front-for-local-businesses/ Well, we hope. But I have a question—how did you feel reading this headline? One of the most fundamental copy writing lessons is “stress the benefit, not the feature.” It turns out that recent neurological research shows that reading about a benefit makes your brain fire as if you’ve experienced it. In other ... http://compass.markethardware.com/blog/2008/02/19/hot-copy-tip-read-this-to-make-clients-call/ Getting great, high-quality inbound links is one of the most important things you can do to naturally promote your business’s website. Our newest “sound in-bound” tip is a new service from Intuit, the makers of QuickBooks, called JumpUp They describe it as a site “that helps new businesses get up and ... http://compass.markethardware.com/blog/2008/02/12/sound-in-bound-intuit-jumpup/ In the on-going keyword arms race, there’s a new weapon. Microsoft has a new Add-In for Excel 2007 that provides all sorts of cool keyword slicing and dicing capabilities. Here’s an overview and a set of video tutorials http://compass.markethardware.com/blog/2008/02/04/cool-tool-ms-adcenter-excel-add-in/ Hey Folks, For anyone currently advertising on Yahoo! or thinking about it, you might be interested in their “new and improved” PPC platform coming out later this year. Yahoo! promises, among other things, better local targeting and the ability to launch campaigns faster. Check out the article at Forbes.com More ... http://compass.markethardware.com/blog/2006/05/09/67/ The IRS has posted new guidelines on tax incentives that are available for energy-efficient technologies for both residences and businesses. Check out the news item at ACHRNews. For background and more information, there’s a whole site devoted to explaining and highlighting energy tax incentives. Whether you’re installing HVAC or plumbing equipment or you ... http://compass.markethardware.com/blog/2006/03/30/tax-credits-for-energy-efficiency/ Whatever one’s political leanings, we can probably agree that we pay a quite a bit of taxes as a part of our business and personal life. If you’re like me, though, reading through the federal budget is just about the definition of hell. Here’s a great chart that makes it a lot ... http://compass.markethardware.com/blog/2006/03/22/death-taxes/ If you’re looking for applications to help you run your office (shared calendar, contacts, etc.), check out Joyent Joyent offers simple, powerful, web-based software that provides small teams with email, calendars, contacts, and shared applications. Other features include file sharing, searching, group-based permissions control, and other geeky and not-so-geeky options. As one who ... http://compass.markethardware.com/blog/2006/03/15/joyent-a-3rd-way-for-team-software/ A brother-in-law of mine is starting a new business (as a solar equipment distributor), and asked me for my recommendations about what technology tools he should consider. Of course I recommend us for his website, logo and search engine marketing. Of my other recommendations, one that he was most impressed with was ... http://compass.markethardware.com/blog/2006/03/07/handy-virtual-pbx/ I talk with small business people on the phone all the time, and most of them seem absurdly busy, but also very much on top of their time management. Occasionally I hear the tension of near-burnout coming through, and I’m left wondering what the first group is doing differently. I ... http://compass.markethardware.com/blog/2006/02/20/making-money-while-avoiding-burnout/