The single biggest struggles I encounter with entrepreneurs trying to build a business is marketing.  Some small business owners don’t think about it; some don’t understand it; some don’t like it; some cling to the belief that it simply shouldn’t be necessary, as long as their product is good enough.  One way or another, though, marketing is always one of the first places entrepreneurs request help.

And though “marketing” is a broad discipline, one of the best places for many entrepreneurs to get started is their own website.  A website is to business today, what the phone book was in 1985.  And yet, despite all that, according to Carol Tice of Entrepreneur.com, a full 46% of small businesses still do not have a website.

Even more importantly, however, is that — if you chose carefully — your website can be an inexpensive place for you to test your message, develop your content and start reaching out to your customers without the extreme expense of traditional marketing and/or advertising campaigns.  And once you’ve had the chance to hone your material, then you can look at how else you can use it.

So, as promised last week, my focus for the final week of 2009 is going to be on the free tools that every business owner can use to help their business.  When it comes to my work with entrepreneurs, I usually start most clients off with one key recommendation: WordPress.

While most people know WordPress as a blogging application, the fact is that it is a fully matured content management system that makes managing your website far easier than attempting to deal with a custom coded site.  While some large-scale websites may need more advanced functionality, most entrepreneurs that I work with who are focused on getting their first site up and running find WordPress to meet their immediate needs.  Even better, your actual core WordPress functionality is free.

Here are a few quick steps to getting a business website up and running on WordPress in less than 2 hours:

Step 1: Select a hosting provider. (Low cost providers are fairly easy to come by.  My recommendation is to go with one that uses Simple Scripts.  It is a utility designed to help you manage installations of a host of applications on your domain.)

Step 2: Purchase your domain.  This can be done as part of your hosting provider purchasing process.  Many providers will even register a domain for you for free as part of your sign-up package.

Step 3: Once your purchase is complete, log into your administrative system and go into Simple Scripts.  Find WordPress.  Select the option for it to “install” in your root directory.

Step 4: After your installation set-up is complete, log into your WordPress admin and go to Settings –> Permalinks.  Under “Common Settings” select “Day and name.”  Hit save.

Step 5: Activate Akismet.  Akismet is a WordPress-built comment spam system.  Unless you want tons and tons of porn spam comments clogging up your website, make sure you turn on this Plugin.  In order to do that, you will need to go to WordPress.com and create an account (or login if you already have one).  Once in, select “My Account” from the main navigation, and then click on “Edit Profile.”  The alpha-numeric code you need (your API key) will be right at the top.  Copy it, and then paste it into your new WordPress install on your domain, in the Akismet settings page.

Step 6: Go to Appearance –> Plugins –> Add New.  This will give you a menu of different plugins that you can add to your installation of WordPress to help you customize it and get the functionality you need for your business website.  Some of the common plugins I recommend include the following:

1. All in One SEO Pack
2. Google Analytics for WordPress
3. XML Sitemaps

I recommend these as starting points for new site owners, because they are extremely important in both driving and understanding traffic.  Additional options that I personally use are plugins for social network activity and “related post” plugins that recommend other articles that are similar to the one the reading is currently viewing.

You’ll need to follow the instructions for each of the plugins to make sure they are properly configured once installed.  Good plugins will walk you through the process, so as long as you follow the instructions, you should be able to get things set up fairly quickly.  (And remember, in a worst case scenario, you can always delete the plugin and then reinstall it, if there is a problem.)

Step 7: Pick a “theme.”  In WordPress-speak, a “theme” is the design of your site.  There are, literally, thousands of themes to choose from, many of them are free.  And even “premium themes” are reasonably affordable, ranging anywhere from $20 up to $200.  I recommend starting with something free, and going from there.  The first place to start looking for themes is within the WordPress admin itself.  Under Appearance –> Add New Themes you will find a menu that allows you to browse different themes, see what you like, and install them to try them out.

If you want to use a theme from a different location (such a Woo Themes, which is a popular seller of business themes for WordPress), you will need an FTP utility that allows you to transfer files from your computer up to your hosting provider.  An application such as FileZilla is also free, and comes with easy instructions that can walk you through the process.  (And any theme you download from another website will also give you instructions on where to upload it once you need to move it into place.)

Now you’ve got a website.

Of course, while this first part is what intimidates many non-technical people, the fact is that installing the site is actually the easiest part.  The hard part is developing your content — what needs to be on your site, what makes sense for your customers, and how should it be organized to be both findable and valuable.  Later this week we’ll cover more tools to use to help you manage your website and develop its content.

A couple of last words of advice on setting up your site with WordPress:

• Use a secure password that you can remember.  Far, far too many people either leave a default password in place (which they can never remember) or use one that is too simple (which can easily be hacked).  Keep in mind that this is your business website, and treat your password appropriately.
• WordPress issues updates to the code fairly regularly.  It is important to try to stay current, because a great many of the updates are security related.  Once the basic WordPress installation has been upgraded, often the plugins will need to be next.  You will get messages whenever you log into the admin, so just follow their instructions and you should be fairly safe.
• WordPress is very easy to get comfortable with, even for the least technical people.  So play around in the admin (or, even better yet, set up a second install in another directory on your website, so that you can experiment without damaging your main website).  To learn more about WordPress, I recommend checking out Yoast.com. Yoast is a site all about WordPress and maximizing it’s value.  There are tutorials, information, recommendations and a great deal of content there for someone trying to get up to speed on how to get the most out of their WordPress install.

Finally, many people ask if they can use free WordPress hosting for their blog. For businesses I strongly discourage this for a couple of reasons:

• Free WordPress hosting does not get your site running on your own domain, which is vital for your search engine optimization (SEO).
• Free WordPress hosting has a very tight number of themes that you can chose from, and you cannot modify them without paying.
• Free WordPress hosting has storage space limitations that could limit some of your multimedia options for posting content.
• Free WordPress hosting does not allow you the opportunity to generate any revenue through advertising.

This article was originally posted on WorkingPoint’s Small Business Blog.

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I am guilty of a great many assumptions. There are a lot of things that I take for granted — the types of things that come naturally to me, the perspective I have on things, the business insights I rely on, the experiences I draw from — are all things that frequently turn out to be a bit more unique to me than I always assume.

One of the biggest assumptions I make is that the only real learning — in both life and business — is attained by doing. And usually doing is a constant experiment. Do, make a mistake, re-do, and repeat as needed.

But what about people who actually do learn in a more academic way? People who want and need to first read, then discuss, then process, then internalize and then try? And is it possible to be successful in life — and especially in your own business — if that’s the process you need to go through to learn?

That’s a perfectly fine solution for a 19-year-old, just getting started, who is still in school. But what about a mid-life professional in a career change, or launching a new venture? What do they do? If you’re trying to get a new business off the ground, you don’t get the luxury of pulling to the side of the road and going back to school for a couple of years.

For some of us, that’s ok. In fact, for some of us, that’s fabulous. But for others, it’s overwhelming, upsetting, frightening and debilitating. What is their solution?

The only thing I can think of is finding a mentor. But how does someone who needs an immersive learning experience find a full-time mentor to come into their new business for 3-6 months, and walk with them as they learn to navigate the treacherous world of a startup? Is it possible? And how does an unfunded startup compensate for that?

I’m genuinely curious and truly want to know how to blend a more traditional academic learning aptitude with the daily chaos of a startup business venture. The two feel mutually exclusive to me, but I feel confident that it can’t be an entirely unique problem, either. Someone somewhere must have solved it. But who? And where are they? And what did they do?

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Last spring, I was reading the annual WorldBlu list of the most democratically run organizations in the world. One of the companies that caught my eye was one whose democratic organizational practices included eliminating a formal vacation day policy.

I remember making a mental note of the idea, because I liked it and wanted to keep it in mind as part of our plans for developing our business over time.  To me, it seemed like a logical extension of the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) concept, which has proven very effective at large companies like Best Buy, while having always been — at least to some extent — a natural part of my career DNA at almost every company I’ve ever worked.

This debate has recently been kicked into the spotlight, thanks to Netflix fairly high profile stand on this position — what started off as a simple presentation (see below) describing their corporate culture, quickly turned into a big debate on the specifics of their vacation policy.

A recent article in Business Insider, Henry Blodget inspired a great deal of commentary when he asked readers what they thought of the idea — most of the responses are in opposition to the idea of a no-policy policy around vacation days. On Entrepreneur.com, author Tanya Payne added a fairly dismissive comment by asking, “Is Netflix run by a bunch of hippies?”

I’m fascinated by this debate, in large part, because in my experience as a white collar, tech professional is that — whether or not it’s “official,” every place I have ever worked has done precisely this. The reality, however, is just that: this is not something that places with hourly staff, or huge organizations are likely to find either appealing or even terribly practical.  So, for me, the question is not, “Does a ‘no vacation policy’ policy make sense?”  But instead, “When does a ‘no vacation policy’ policy make sense?”

As someone who works in a geographically independent profession on dynamic, project-specific, virtual teams with entrepreneurs and small organizations, this is sort of an obvious no-brainer. Even more importantly, what I like best about the idea of a ‘no policy policy’ when it comes to vacation time, is the fact that forces team accountability: either the person taking a vacation makes the necessary arrangements to be covered while they are out, or the person who hired them has to acknowledge that their staff is not mature enough to handle the responsibility of being treated like an adult — in which case, whether or not that person should stay needs to be asked and answered.

I also like that it eliminates what can seem like arbitrary favoritism in a crisis. Several times in my career, I have seen different sides of this equation, and all of them support the reasoning behind a no policy approach:

• A co-worker’s husband had a massive heart attack and, as a result, she was out of work for about a month. She had neither the vacation nor sick days accumulated to cover her time off, but no one for a second questioned that. She needed to be home with her family, and — even more importantly — now that their income had just suffered a massive (and indefinite) hit, the last thing she could afford to do was to have to chose between paying the bills or taking care of her husband and kids in the wake of a family crisis.
• As I was leaving another company, my final paperwork indicated that I had a negative number of vacation hours, based on my accrual rate and the amount of time I’d been with the company. However, the person handling it “wasn’t going to make a big deal” about it, and let it go without docking my final paycheck the even out the number of hours in my vacation bank.
• During a particularly high stress time in my years with another company, my boss — being both perceptive and prudent — recognized that I was overly taxed and at the end of my rope. With a non-negotiable Thursday morning instant message, he effectively kicked me out of the office for the following week and told me to clear my head, get some rest and that he didn’t want to see me until a week from the following Monday.

In each of these cases, the “official” policy said one thing, but the culture of the organization over-ruled it when circumstances arose. I think that doing this is far more dangerous — and potentially rife with conflict — than simply stating, “We do not count your vacation hours. Be a grown up. Plan accordingly, and work with your team to make sure your responsibilities are covered.” Because at least that policy sets the expectations.

The problem with exception-based end-runs around official policies is that you can’t prevent them. But, worse yet, they are fickle. It depends on the people involved, their relationships, the timing, their responsibilities, etc. That is where I see the vast majority of unfairness playing out, because there is no way to stop someone from working out a special arrangement because of “special circumstances.” The trouble with that, though, is who defines what the special circumstances are, which ones warrant a special deal, and what happens when someone else’s “special circumstances” are dismissed as less worthy of special arrangements?

Of course, the flip side in my universe is that I am a workaholic who seeks out high-chaos environments where no one ever only works 40 hours per week. I also specifically work in smaller organizations with a lot of flexibility, where working from home is standard, and where expectations are different. If there is one thing I learned working in the airline industry, it’s that there are different rules for hourly customer service teams than there are for backoffice salaried teams. Is that fair? Probably not. Is it avoidable? If it is, it’s probaby only possible while an organization is still small. (And even then, I’m not sure I’d be willing to bet the ranch on that.)

So, while I find the debate over the no vacation policy issue intersting, I guess what I mostly find is that it’s ignoring a tremendously important factor: it depends on your team, your culture, your services and your business. As with many things, the smaller the organization, the easier some of these things are to manage this way. Often times, stricter, formal policies arise out of a need for clarity that comes from too many different managers managing too many different teams that have too many different people. Clarity is a security blanket.

I think there are better ways to accomplish that clarity that are both more fair and more respectful, but a formal policy can definitely have its value. But then again, so too is there value in a boss recognizing that a member of his team is burned out and needs some time off, whether or not they have the official hours banked to take it.

I guess the real key boils down to three vital questions:

1. What kind of business do you want to run?
2. What kind of people do you want to hire?
3. And what kind of boss do you want to be?

It is probably only with a specific combination of answers that a no vacation policy can make sense. But, I’d venture to say that where it does make sense, it’d be hard to find a really good reason not to do it.

This post originally appeared as part of my Entrepreneur Evangelist series on WorkingPoint‘s Small Business Blog.

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For any entrepreneur, the value of a mentor can almost never be overstated.  Whether it’s building your business plan, defining your market, figuring out a product strategy, or trying to sell your spouse on the idea that giving up a steady paycheck from someone else is a sane thing to do, a mentor is one of the single most valuable things any entrepreneur can find.  Sometimes they come out of the woodwork when you least expect it; other times, you have to go on an aggressive hunt for the right one.

One of the best places for many new entrepreneurs to start is SCORE. (Disclaimer: WorkingPoint is a SCORE sponsor.) SCORE is an organization comprised of small business owners — some actively running businesses, others retired — who work together to build a community to support other small business owners.  While some parts of the country have locally grown networks to support entrepreneurs, SCORE has more than 350 chapters across the US, dedicated to providing counseling and advising services to small business owners.

This week, on SCORE’s Ask an Expert blog, advisor Steve Bloom posted an article on a recent experience he had working with an entrepreneur whose idea was not something he felt had sufficient market to be a viable business.  In the post, Steve recounts the conflict he felt between wanting to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit and the strong sense that this particular idea had extremely long odds of success.

Ultimately, the real point he endevours to drive home, is that whether or not the idea is successful, the entrepreneur can still learn a tremendous amount from trying to get his venture up and running.  The value of the lessons one can learn through failure is something that every entrepreneur must always remember.  In the blogosphere “failing fast” is a common topic, but in reality, most of us are so terrified to fail that we will often turn ourselves inside out in an effort to avoid that experience.

This is one of the places that a mentor can help: a mentor who has been through the process before can not only offer their insight and perspective to help navigate pitfalls, but they can also help remind you that, even in the event of failure, you still get value out of an experience.

One of the most important exercises one of my earliest mentors walked me through was a process of defining my ‘worst case scenario.’  And, amazingly enough, I quickly realized that once I defined my biggest nightmare, it wasn’t anywhere near as scary as it was when it was a nebulous, ill-defined gray cloud hanging over my head; even better, it became much easier to insulate myself from the worst of the possible ramifications once I was clear about the details.

The flip side of Steve’s lesson is equally important: a mentor does not know everything.  And while it’s always nice to have a mentor who understands both you and your idea, the fact is that everyone has different strengths.  Just because a mentor may not consider your venture to be the world’s greatest idea, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.

Part of the test for a mentor is to give you the best advice and encouragement they can; part of the test for an entrepreneur is to listen, process the information, and then make a final determination based on what you know to be true.  You won’t always agree, but that doesn’t make the advice bad, or the mentor wrong.  And hearing those concerns raised is always important, because it helps a new entrepreneur re-examine assumptions and ideas, to make sure there are no holes that have been over-looked.

So, if you have or are looking to start a business, and you do not already have a mentor, I’d strongly recommend looking for one.  There are plenty of different approaches to try (serial entrepreneur Penelope Trunk isn’t above being slightly annoying to snag the one she wants), but whatever you do, start looking for one — check out a local SCORE chapter, Chamber of Commerce, startup incubator or entrepreneurial Meetup.

Wherever you look, just remember: someone who has done it before, always has insights of value for someone just starting out.  They may not all fit, but there is always the chance for some great gems that can help you side-step a landmine.

This post originally appeared as part of my Entrepreneur Evangelist series on WorkingPoint‘s Small Business Blog.

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This is a guest blog post by Austin Gunter.  To read more of Austin’s work, you should check out his blog at AustinGunter.com.

Conquer your enemies. Use your own agility to make your opponent move even slower. The faster you can make decisions and take action, the more deadly you will be when facing your opponent.

There is a business book making the rounds at the Tech Ranch that, similar to the last  paragraph, seems like it’s about military strategy.  But it’s not. The book, Certain to Win, does  talk a whole lot about military strategy.   The first half of the book finally explains how the Nazis used the Blitzkrieg and tore into the French lines.  Turns out, that was a two-week campaign that made all the difference for the Third Reich, and made the war last as long as it did.  The Nazis were far outnumbered, had obsolete technology, and lacked the resources of the Allied troops. Let’s replace the Third Reich and the Allies with small start-up vs. Microsoft, David vs. Goliath.

It’s been said that Bill Gate’s Biggest Fear is, “that some kid will brew up the next killer app in his garage in Kenosha and Microsoft won’t own it.”  What’s the difference between your startup and a behemoth like Microsoft?  The answer should be a cultural.  Since a small start-up lacks the sheer resources of a Microsoft, they have to have a culture of quick decisions, made with an emphasis on agility, not brute strength.  The difference is between a Business Plan and a Business Strategy.

Before I explain this, I want to make sure everyone understands that, just like the rest of you, I’m glad that Good triumphed over Evil in World War II.  I’m not advocating the sickness of Nazi ideology.

What I AM saying, what Certain to Win says, is that the Nazis achieved success against a more powerful opponent because they made decisions faster than their bigger, bureaucratic opponent.  This structure meant that agility won out over far superior numbers AND technology.

I am suggesting that we model aspects of this structure in our respective start-ups.  This structure will make us more agile and enable us to take down giant corporations (at this point, Microsoft is probably more Nazi-like than your start-up I’m sure).  By moving twice as fast as a bigger company, a start-up can release a beta in a few months, while the big guy is still sitting in meetings, waiting for approval.  Google is a notable exception of a billion-dollar company that structures itself like a thousand tiny start-ups.  Google is regularly releasing betas, some of them better than others.  By releasing the beta, Google invites the feedback of millions of users who ultimately decide if the product is hot or not.

This is how structural agility in a start-up should manifest.

Stop making Business Plans.

Business plans are like computer technology.  By the time you get all the figures and graphs printed, your financials, just like your microchips, are obsolete.  Your startup has changed, and your numbers are based on what used to be true.  Following a 20 page business plan inhibits making decisions based on what is true now.   In a start-up, sticking to your original plan is a very reliable way to become obsolete yourself because you are making decisions according to old information.

What do you do when your carefully made plans go astray?  Hint: the right answer isn’t panic.

Rely on Business Strategy.

Instead of making a step-by-step plan of how to drive from Los Angeles to New York, ask yourself a few questions and develop a strategy that will enable everyone in your company to make quick decisions.  Why are you making this trip?  If the goal is to arrive as quickly as possible, then fill the tank up and hit the gas.  Or if the goal is to get the most out of the trip itself, then you can spend time enjoying the scenery.  Either strategy will get you to your destination

The only way to make it as a startup is to create a culture that encourages innovation and independent thinking by your employees.  Let’s go back to the analogy of traveling from Los Angeles to New York.  If you’re the CEO and you’ve fallen asleep halfway through the Texas Panhandle, any of your employees that happen to be behind the wheel MUST be empowered to make a decision without rousing you from your slumber.  If they have to wait for your approval to change lanes, the opportunity will pass you by before you can take advantage of it.

How can you create a culture where strategy is more important than a plan?

I hope this helps.

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I love startups. I love the chaos. I love the insane hours. I love the energy. I love the types of people who are attracted to work on high-risk ideas with long odds. I love the culture that evolves around them. I love it all. I have spent my career hopping from one startup to the next, because there is nothing I love more.

But every startup hits a tipping point, and it’s rarely articulated as clearly and beautifully as Steve Blank does in an article posted to VentureBeat today. The transition from a ‘scrappy startup’ to a mid-sized company trying to be more mature is always infinitely more painful a process than anyone seems to think is reasonable.

This surprises me every time I see it. In his story, Steve recounts watching a new CFO to a mid-sized firm implement a ‘no more free soda’ policy and inadvertently spark an exodus of the founding team of engineers. What’s more interesting, though, is that some of the comments posted on the story miss the point: the engineers didn’t leave the company because the company started charging them $.50 for a Coke. The engineers left because being charged $.50 for a Coke was a sign that the company was no longer the same organization that they’d previously been willing to sacrifice for.

That’s a subtle distinction, but a vital one. More than once, I and many of my colleagues, have been willing to take significant pay cuts to work in environments that had a culture (or other intangibles) that made the trade-off worthwhile. Eventually, though, most organizations change enough to where that trade-off ceases to be worth it. The part that is often upsetting, however, is that those changes are frequently sparked by someone coming in the door more intent on shaking things up than on understanding the culture they are walking into.

Steve’s story is one that I can relate to over and over again. It wasn’t until I had a truly remarkable executive come into our organization, and refuse to act precipitously, but instead insist on watching and interviewing the entire staff for his first 60 days, that I had the slightest hope of someone making positive changes without unraveling the cultural elements that held us together, even in the face of the chaos. So now, when I go into startups, many of which are at the transition point between early-stage/founding team, and their second generation, I have a five step approach I follow:

1. Recognize that, for founding teams, everything is personal. The people who build a new organization take on a lot of risk and chaos to do it. They have to believe in it. It’s almost a religious experience, and you can’t come in a year or two later and expect them not to take your changes personally. Because, whether it makes sense to you or not, everything is personal. They’ve sacrificed too much for it not to be.
2. Understand the evolution. You have to be a bit of an archaeologist when you go into a new business. Do not make assumptions about how they got where they are. If you look long and hard enough, talk to enough people, and do your research, you’ll find that even the craziest things you see have a reason for having evolved the way they did. Unless or until you understand that reason, anything you do to try to “fix” the situation runs the risk of alienating people unnecessarily.
3. Respect the sacrifices made by the people who came before you. Unless you know that the people who are there when you walk in the door are dead wood and you want them to quit, make sure you demonstrate some respect to what they were able to accomplish — especially if they did it under tough circumstances. The single biggest source of alienation I have ever seen has been when new people come in, hot-to-trot, making changes and the people who built the company in the first place are treated like morons who simply got lucky.
4. Work on depersonalizing the business. It is reasonable that early stage startups are often personal sacrifices for people — they need to be. But a maturing company has to pass the point where that is no longer true. Not all of the early stage team will be able to handle that transition, but many of them can and will if they do not feel kicked in the teeth by new leadership brought in from the outside. Slowly building in an ethic of, “It’s not personal, but this is where the business needs to go now” is actually often much easier than people assume it to be. Founding teams want the business to be successful. That was the whole point for their sacrifice. If you want or need them to stick around, then help them learn to take a step back and not see the evolution of the business as an emotional affair.
5. Facilitate relationships between the old guard and new guard. Not all of the old guard is (or should) make the transition to the new phase of the business. And not all of the new guard is capable of showing any respect for what the old guard has done. But if you focus on individuals, their talents, and understanding what drives them, it is often possible to help connect people in ways that build strong teams to move the company forward. But you must keep in mind that there is often an automatic lack of trust between both groups, a tendency to point fingers, and a common tradition of resentment that you must work through before you are going to see progress.

Businesses are made up of people. And not every person is right for every business at every stage. Some really do need to move on as an organization grows. But that should be a deliberate, well-considered decision, not a haphazard, expensive mistake spurred by a short-sighted, penny-pinching reason. Unfortunately, that’s the cause I’ve seen most frequently throughout my career. And it’s a bit tragic, because a lot of dynamic organizations have lost a lot of amazing talent that could have helped grow the business and make it successful.

(This post is part of my Entrepreneur Evangelist series and was originally published on WorkingPoint‘s Small Business Blog.)

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As a content strategist one of the things I spend a great deal of time discussing with entrepreneurs is SEO.  As I’ve written here before, my first goal in any SEO discussion with someone is to help educate them on what SEO is and isn’t, and what it really can do versus what it really can’t.  (Can: help people who know what they are looking for find you; Can’t: wash your dog, change your oil or solve all of your sales and marketing problems.)  And then from there, we can discuss what a reasonable SEO strategy would look like for a small business.

In the end, though, I always end up advocating one thing: valuable content.   And while I often get a lot of ‘yes ma’am’ head nodding around that topic, there is a single critical reason that I continue to make that point: the world of search is on a roller coaster at the moment, and trying to play the SEO game with the current set of rules is only going to get you a short-term win (if that) without putting your focus on strong, valuable content. This is a great untapped opportunity for entrepreneurs, because they are better equipped to move faster than large businesses, full of teams of people whose job would be in danger if they were not longer perceived as critical.

People who are unfamiliar with the online search space often do not understand what I mean when I talk about the imminent changes to the the industry.  Today I’ll cover a few examples, thanks to some new releases that Google has just made. (Examples from Google’s official blog.)

• Personalized search
• Real time search

What is “personalized search“?

For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes. Other times, when I’m looking for news about Cornell University’s sports teams, I search for [big red]. Because I frequently click on www.cornellbigred.com, Google might show me this result first, instead of the Big Red soda company or others.

What is “real time search“?

Now, immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page.

These are two great examples, because they demonstrate why having relevant content on your website is important.  Focusing your SEO energy (and budget) on building link-backs and fine-tuning your keywords has limited value in the long-term, because search engines are going to increasingly focus on other things to establish relevancy.

Just these two changes alone mean that two different people can type in the same keywords but get different results, depending on their personal search history and when they look.  And, if you factor in the increasingly popular localized search, what city those users are in could also impact their results.

What excites me most about these changes is that it further helps in taking the focus off the means and onto the end: your web presence should be about engaging your customers in a meaningful way, finding new customers and enhancing your existing relationship.  Far too many people focus on jockeying for a good SEO position in spite of their content, instead of focusing on the content first and using it as a foundation for successful SEO.

The tidal wave of changes in the search space is going to make it increasingly hard to duck the real question for all businesses on the web: are you saying anything worth paying attention to?  If you are, then these updated techniques will only help you.  If you are not and have been playing SEO-peek-a-boo, then these changes are going to expose that.

I see far too many entrepreneurs who have been taken to the cleaners by unscrupulous “SEO consultants,” and one of my chief missions is to help prevent that wherever possible. So before you look to hire SEO help, ask yourself if you are prepared to actually create (or pay for) good content for your website.

In the modern web-based business world, there is an updated version to your grandmother’s old saying:  “If you don’t have anything relevant to say, don’t say anything at all.”  These new changes by Google will continue to make that point.

(This post is part of my Entrepreneur Evangelist series and was originally published on WorkingPoint‘s Small Business Blog.)

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One of my favorite parts of the end of any year are the ‘year in review’ and/or ‘next year’s prediction’ lists.  And when it’s a year that ends in a “0,” the lists are usually longer, more interesting and cover a longer window.  So, too, already with this year.  As we head into 2010, we are already starting to see the ‘decade in review’ lists.  My favorite one so far, is Inc.’s Entrepreneur of the Decade list.

Of course, part of the reason that I find this decade’s list so interesting is because almost every company listed has touched my life — some more directly than others.  And, quite rightly, most of the entrepreneur’s Inc. calls out have created brands whose influence has become deeply baked into our culture in ways we never would have predicted in 2000, but which we take for granted today.

1. Steve Jobs of Apple
2. Jeff Bezos of Amazon
3. Jack Ma of Alibaba.com
4. Martha Stewart
5. John Mackey of Whole Foods
6. Leslie Blodgett of Bare Escentuals
7. Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com
8. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook
9. Tony Hsieh of Zappos
10. Peter Theil of PayPal
11. Reed Hastings of Netflix
12. David Neeleman of JetBlue
13. Nick Denton of Gawker Media
14. Stefan Persson of H&M
15. Evan Williams and Biz Stone of Twitter
16. Nandan Nilekani of Infosys Technologies
17. Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google

Aside from some of the more obvious companies that made this list — e.g. PayPal, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Amazon — part of what I love about this list are the non-tech companies that make an appearance: Whole Foods, Bare Escentuals, JetBlue and H&M.

Coming from a tech-centric background, it’s often easy to forget that “innovation” is not synonomous with “technology.”  I think this is something that is often forgotten, particularly when it comes to startups.  The focus is often put on technology, instead of on creating innovative solutions.

Zappos and Netflix are two of my favorite examples, because they are often lumped into the category of “tech companies,” yet in reality, their true market differentiator has almost nothing to do with the actual technology itself.  The technology they use — in both cases ecommerce, and in Netflix case especially, a super-heavy dose of social commerce — is a means to an end, but their real innovation is around service.  Because, let’s face it, there is nothing about either of their core business that is new: Zappos sells apparel items and Netflix rents movies.

Yet in a world where apparel distributors are operating on razor-thin margins while eating enormous costs in real estate and related overhead, Zappos stands out as a customer service example to etailers everywhere.  And while Blockbuster is closing down stores by the hundreds and the movie studios scream about online piracy problems, Netflix continues to demonstrate that there really is money to be made in renting movies. (And we will skip the extent to which both companies continue to be examples of great business cultures with enviable employee engagement levels.)

The greatest thing about this list, though, is how much of it represents massive change to the small business arena itself.  Apple, Amazon, Salesforce, PayPal, Twitter and Google have all been phenomenally disruptive influences that have helped set the stage for the new era of small business opportunity.  Whether they all started out with that intent or not, each of them has helped build a new set of business models and standards that foster more opportunities for small business success.

At what prior point in history would a list like this have included so many amazing influences that have helped entrepreneurs have access to more tools and services, and help make them more successful?  None, really.  So the real reason I love this list is because it continues to show that, even the biggest success stories we can find, are successful because, in large part, they are continuing to fan the flames of entrepreneurship far beyond their own front doors.

(This post is part of my Entrepreneur Evangelist series and was originally published on WorkingPoint‘s Small Business Blog.)

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One of the reasons that I have always loved being in the web business is because things constantly change.  When I first got online in 1993, we used bulletin board systems and monochrome monitors.  When I got my first tech job in 1996, everything was about corporate Windows networks and preparing for Y2K (remember that?).  When I started in ecommerce in 2000, it was all about building tech tools from scratch because very few existed at a price point for small to mid-sized businesses.

Today, the web is about marketing.  And one of the biggest influences in that shift has come from the world of search.  Findability is key, above all else.  And that means the topic of search engine optimization is one that every web professional has to be at least a little familiar with, even if it’s not your core business.

Every single week I have people coming to me to ask for help with their SEO, and the cold hard truth is that most of them have no idea what they really need, and are not prepared for what it’s going to cost (in either time or money) to get what they think they want.  As a result, these entrepreneurs are often tempted by unscrupuoulous parasites who troll the internet looking for hapless victims who can quickly and easily be separated from their money.

In his recent blog article, In SEO, There’s No Such Thing As A Guarantee, Brand5 CEO Mark Faggiano takes these spammers to task and issues a warning to those who might be tempted to bite.  Mark’s point is that, if you get an email from someone “guaranteeing” you top ranked SEO results, it’s junk and don’t buy into their promises.

For anyone (legitimate) who works in this field, this is often the very first conversation we have with prospective clients.  Why?  Because such “guarantees” are not possible.  There is too much outside of any one person’s control to be able to make promises like this.  Things change too rapidly and there is no way to ensure that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow.

Of course, this is also the reason that many people get sticker shock when they talk to a legitimate SEO about doing this type of work:  it’s time consuming, and so it is often very expensive.  Moreso than many entrepreneurs are ready, willing or able to pay.

So when I start working with a client, my first meeting with them is about understanding what truly makes sense, and figuring out a plan forward.  I start with a few basic questions when it comes to developing a plan.

What are your products or services?
Not all businesses need great SEO to get the effect that they need.  In fact, some will be better off putting those resources in other places entirely, because their customers are just not internet-centric.  Another thing to consider is that, the only way people can find you is if your product or service is something that your customers can describe/articulate themselves and would think to look online for a solution.

For some businesses that is obvious, but for innovative products or services, sometimes keyword-based solutions are the wrong way to go because your customers may not have any idea that you’ve even got a solution or what you’ve named it.

Do you have an automated sales process or a hands-on one?
If you have a product that people can find, signup and use without ever having to interact with a live person (such as WorkingPoint), then SEO has great value.  If you are someone who provides a customized service (such as a consultant), where you have to scope the job, do some research, have some meetings and evaluate your potential contribution before setting a price, then there are other areas where your efforts are going to garner better return — starting with some targeted social media.

Your prospective customers need to be able to research you online by name, but that’s probably not the way they are going to find you in the first place.  So, again, heavy investments in getting top tier SEO results are probably better allocated elsewhere.

Who are your customers and where do they spend their time?
This is the final lynchpin in developing a strategy, because you have to be where your customers are.  If your customers are corporate clients who have an internal purchasing department, then you need to spend time using their channels to get on their approved buyer list — their process usually preclude online research until it’s a last resort.

Not all customers are available via the same channels.  You need to know who your customers are to figure out how to find them.  And then figure out what internet marketing channels make the most sense.

What’s the state of your content?
As a content strategist, this is actually my last step once all of the above have been examined.  What kind of content you need on your site will depend on your product/service, your sales process and your customer base.  You can have the greatest product in the world, but if you can’t articulate it in a compelling way on your site, you will never see any conversion.

Conversely, you could have tons of great content, but if it is not organized in an intuitive and meaningful way for your customers, and if it’s not focused enough to have findable keyword value, then you could be wasting your time and effort generating content that is not serving your goal.

I start off most of my content workshops by telling attendees, “Don’t drink the SEO Kool-Aid!”  Too many people think it’s a silver bullet that is going to make or break their business.  And sure, it can be a big help, and when someone comes looking for you, you absolutely need to be findable.  Twenty years ago businesses did that buy being in the phone book.  Today we do it by being online.

But how much time and effort you should really be sinking into your SEO is a different question, and it does not have a straight forward answer.  So beyond Mark’s original warning against those who offer you guarentees, I’ll toss out a second warning: not everyone needs to be #1 on the search engines.  And the truth is, not everyone can be.  Developing an appropriate web presence is unique to every business.  Don’t let anyone sell you on the one-size-fits all fantasy.

(This post is part of my Entrepreneur Evangelist series and was originally published on WorkingPoint‘s Small Business Blog.)

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For some families, business is just part of the package.  As someone who grew up in a family-owned business, one of the reasons I ducked-and-weaved every time my husband used to bring up the idea of us owning our own business was because I saw a lot of headache (and heartache) as a result of mixing business and family.

Eventually I stopped fighting the inevitable, but I remain constantly aware of the fact that my husband and I have two very different relationships: one as spouses and one as business partners.  And there is no way to avoid the fact that there are times when the needs of one relationship create tension in the other.

A recent post on Forbes, When Siblings Don’t Pull Their Weight by Gene Marks, showcases an example of how one family business found a resolution to some of these challenges: a set of three siblings bought the family business from their parents, and eventually ran into a problem because one of them wasn’t pulling their weight.

The solution Gene discusses is rather clever, but it’s a long-term solution.  In my experience working with family-owned businesses, there are two common challenges that surface in situations like this:

Avoidance. This was, predictably, part of the pattern Gene discussed in his sibling example: the problem festered for quite a while before a solution was found, because no one wanted to rock the boat.  Everyone was afraid of upsetting their parents and generally causing family strife, so the two siblings who were carrying the heaviest burden of the business avoided saying anything for as long as they could stand.

Urgency. Often this becomes an issue because of avoidance — though it can also be a matter of size.  The longer you avoid a problem, the more likely it is that it will get worse until you have no choice but to deal with it.  And usually, by the time that happens, you’ve got a much bigger mess on your hands than you would have had if you’d handled it sooner.

Small businesses in particular are often cursed with tight enough living conditions that too big a crisis can quickly sink the entire ship.  One of my clients owns a business with his wife, and after a few years of growing it, they decided to bring her daughter in to help run the daily logistics.  The idea made sense for all concerned, and so they got started.

Unfortunately, over time, the daughter’s idea of “a full work day” did not jibe with her step-father’s.  Since the point of bringing her on-board was to off-load as much of the burden from the parent’s as possible, the fact that they were shelling out an enormous percentage of their revenue to pay her salary while not seeing any real reduction in the number of hours they were putting in started causing a problem.

It didn’t take long for my client to get very frustrated: his wife was responsible for managing her daughter, but she didn’t want to be the bad guy.  Unfortunately, she didn’t want her husband to do it, either.  Relationships all the way around quickly grew strained, until the point that family events were palably uncomfortable for everyone.  The situation went on for more than two years before outside circumstances intervened, and the daughter left the business of her own accord.

Now, while they still maintain the same workload as they always have, their financial burden has dropped by more than 20% since they no longer have to pay her salary.  In a small family business with extremely narrow operating margins, that 20% has been a huge relief.  But the real problem was avoided, instead of resolved.

Working with family presents a set of challenges over-and-above the normal assortment that comes standard in most small businesses.  Earlier this year at Austin’s South by Southwest Interactive conference, I asked Wine Library‘s Gary Vaynerchuck about his experience joining (and ultimately taking over) his family’s business.  My specific question was how they all got through it without hurting each other’s feelings.

His answer, of course, was that they didn’t.  He said they constantly hurt each other’s feeling in the beginning, and it took a long time to make work.  But the important thing was always to remember that, no matter how hard it was to integrate their different styles into a rational working relationship, they were family and they loved each other.  They wanted to work together, so they just kept trying until they got it to work.

The answer is different for every family.  Some businesses are too delicate to withstand the turmoil that comes with family strife; other businesses may be too delicate to withstand replacing a family member.  The only real key is to find a way to be honest and don’t fall into the avoidance trap.  It’s possible to be honest about difficult issues and still be kind.  But the longer you let something fester, the harder that becomes.

The old saying, “Bad news doesn’t get better with age” holds true here: if you keep something bottled up, eventually you’ll explode.  It’s bad enough to have a fight with someone you love.  But the last thing you want is to wait until it’s so bad that your business can’t bounce back.

So remember, bite the bullet, be honest and remember that they are your family.  Working together may not be the solution you had originally hoped for, but I guarantee, your holiday dinners will be much better if you don’t have to rely on the lawyers to intervene when it’s time to pass the cranberry sauce.

(This post is part of my Entrepreneur Evangelist series and was originally published on WorkingPoint‘s Small Business Blog.)

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