So how do you choose?

I am going to start with how to choose an infographic so that when you are in the search process, you can keep these ideas in mind.

How to Choose Infographics

Always think about how relevant the infographic will be to your target audiences.

For example, if your blog is about gardening, there are multiple ways you can go. You could easily focus on “5 Flowers That  Must  Have Sun to Grow”, but  this would also be relevant, “10 Ways to Get Dirt and Grass Stains Out of Clothes.” Even though the stained clothing is not exactly on target with your subject, it still relates.

Keep your mind open to options.

The next thing you need to do is make sure the information provided is accurate and useful. There are many infographics I see that were created quickly with no fact checking done. Sometimes they are made to be beautiful, but offer very little value. For me personally, the infographics with no value are waste of time.

The goal is: Find an infographic that is both attractive and offers valuable information to the reader.

How to Find Infographics

Sometimes finding Infographics can be difficult. Obviously you can use the main search on search engines, but there are other strategies to find the best ones out there. I use the following below to get more recent infographics.

1). Check Sites That Collect Infographics:

• Infographic Journal
• Small Business Infographics Gallery
• Daily Infographic
• Cool Infographics
• Visual.ly
• Pinterest
• Infographics at AllTop

2). Check Google News and Google Blog Search

Typically, I can get the best and latest infographics in Google News. Just search for your subject and “infographic” and see what appears. Sometimes I just search for “infographic” and I find hidden gems that I may use or save for later.

I use Google Blog Search the same way and I often find different infographics than I found in Google News. I use news and blog search because it gives me more up-to-date information.

3). Twitter Search and Hashtag #Infographic

People share infographics on Twitter all the time. Make sure you check this search to find new and recent items.

4). Google Alerts

If you don’t want to spend all your time searching, you can have Google find them for you with Google Alerts. Just have a Gmail account ready to go and add the search queries you are interested in. When things you are looking for are published and Google finds them, you will receive an email.

However, lately the service has not been working as quickly or effectively as I would like in some circumstances, but in other cases it is. You can always see if it works for you and if it doesn’t – just delete the alerts you set up.

Things You Must Do When Using Infographics

Anytime you use an infographic you should have a solid introduction to the infographic. Note who created it and link to them. It is really important to give credit to the infographic creator and a name and link is the proper way to do that.

When creating your introduction you should create at least 2 paragraphs on why this infographic could be helpful to your readers. Quickly review the interesting points and tell the reader why the infographic could be useful to them.

You also want to make sure that the infographic is sized to fit your blog well (width-wise).

Tips on Saving Infographics

If you download every infographic you like, your computer will fill up fast. I use Evernote to save all the infographics I am interested in possibly using. I tag them accordingly and can go back and use them when I need them.

You can also create a Pinterest board for infographics based on subject.

A Humorous Infographic for You

Why is this useful?

Well it makes people smile because it has cute cats in funny positions and it makes fun of social media. I just thought I would throw the infographic in to entertain you. As an editor and writer, I have found that appropriate humor does well with most audiences and can drive a lot of traffic.

This infographic was created by Avalaunch Media.

[Click image for full size version]

The post A Quick Guide: How to Find and Use Infographics appeared first on Small Business Trends.

There are always things to ask SEO companies to see if they are qualified, but the big question is:

Do they care or take an interest in what is best for the client?

If they do the following 3 things will be important to them.

When Hiring an SEO Company: 3 Things

Strategies Based on Goals, Not Traffic Numbers

All SEO and Internet marketing strategies should start with the goals a business has for improving branding, sales, traffic and/or anything else.

An SEO company that doesn’t even ask what your goals are or what you are hoping to achieve is not focused on the right things. Their goals might not match your goals and if they are not asking about your goals, they are most likely focused on their own (which to me means they have little experience).

Increased traffic cannot be the only goal an SEO company works towards. I know I can get people traffic all day long, but is it quality traffic? Quality traffic buys, invests, shares, begins the trust process and/or meets one or more of your goals. The strategies put into place must be focused on goals.

Take away: If a SEO company doesn’t bring up goals, they are not the company for you. You should not have to point out that goals are a priority.

Educating the Client as Part of the Process

Every so often I hear people tell me that their SEO company cannot tell them what the company is doing because it is “secret.” Okay. . .well, let’s analyze this. I educate my clients, but I don’t tell them everything. Nor do I tell things or answer detailed questions to people that are not paying me. However, if I have a potential client in front of me, I often educate them enough to understand what the issues are with their SEO and/or website. These are not secrets, but the basics of what an SEO company does.

I tell a lot and I educate a lot. But even with the knowledge I give away, the client would still need my services. Even if I told a “secret” the person most likely wouldn’t have the knowledge or experience to use the “secret” effectively. I can say a lot without rendering myself useless.

Educated clients know they are not wasting their money with me and they know what to look for in regards to traffic, leads and goals. By educating, we become a “team” and long-lasting working relationships are formed.

Take away: I think an SEO company that wants their clients to be educated (to a point) on the services they are offering is a good sign. Those that refuse to truly educate make me nervous.

Understanding of User Experience

An SEO company has to understand how critical the user experience (UX) is for visitors to a website. SEO and great rankings are wonderful, but if a visitor comes in to a site and cannot find what they are looking for or the site is difficult to use then sales are lost.

A good SEO company should be focused on everything from the beginning to the end: goal-oriented traffic that results in a conversion. When they are talking to you about your website, they should be able to point out things that could cause a problem or discuss things that could be improved to help meet the goals of the SEO strategies.

Take away: If a company only discusses changes to meta tags and has nothing else to offer, then they are not the company you should be working with. They should be focused on the usability of the website, the user experience start to finish and most importantly, page content and features supporting SEO strategies and goals.

Do They Want What is Best for YOU?

There are lots of little questions to ask SEO companies, but I am encouraging you to look a bit further. A good SEO company will want what is best for you and what is best for you includes:

• SEO strategies based on your goals: SEO should meet a need for you. If the company is not focused on your needs, they are not focused on what is best for you, period.
• Educating you: You are the client and you should be educated on the services you are paying for and what they will offer you. You should have at least a basic understanding that allows you to monitor what is working and what isn’t. Without this knowledge, you could be paying for services that do nothing for you. Is this what is best for you?
• An understanding of user experience: If an SEO company isn’t concerned with the UX (user experience) of your website then they are not thinking about what is best for your company. UX is a critical part of what real SEO companies do. Real SEO companies are not focused on just meta tags and traffic. They are focused on how each and every single thing will impact your SEO, your UX, your sales and your goals.

There are a lot of other factors to look at when hiring an SEO company, but as someone that owns their own SEO company, I encourage you to remember the three things I mentioned above.

Optimization Photo via Shutterstock

The post 3 Unique Things to Look for When Hiring an SEO Company appeared first on Small Business Trends.

As you are reading this, keep in mind that you can use the items you save in Evernote for research and ideas for upcoming articles. But you can also use the items you save directly in articles. I am going to explain how you can do this.

What is Evernote?

Evernote is a free tool that allows you to save basically anything that you are interested in. You can save URLs for images, articles, videos, images, infographics and anything else that has a URL. Evernote essentially “clips” an excerpt of information from a web page and the items you clip are organized. You can login to Evernote from any computer. There are extensions for the browsers you use and there are apps for mobile devices. Basically, you can get to your saved information from anywhere.

Start by Organizing

In Evernote you can create “notebooks” (basically categories) and you can tag whatever you save/clip with keywords so you can search your notebooks easily later.

The best way to start using Evernote is to create notebooks/categories for the subjects you are interested in writing about. Some examples:

• SEO
• PPC
• Blogging
• Content Marketing
• Infographics
• Videos
• Memes

By saving good articles, you always have a way to find great information when writing new articles. You also avoid that, “Where did I read that?” problem.

It is important to “tag” articles in any way that can help you sift through articles or web pages later. Once you have 50 articles on blogging, for example, it might be easier if you could just find the articles related to “services” only.

I also suggest tagging with the year of the article so you can determine if information is old or new.

Evernote is Amazing for Recap Posts

Sometimes recaps can be a great way to share information. Recaps can be on any topic and they are often a collection of educational information for the reader.

Let’s say you work in Excel all the time and you research ways to create things, like pivot tables. Perhaps you want to create a collection of “how to” articles for your readers. If you have saved the educational articles you have read in Evernote you can just go in and search for “Excel” and see a list of articles that might be good for your readers. It is easy to create a recap post this way.

Plan Ahead for Recaps

As you read, you can save articles you think are great for recap posts. You can even tag them with something like “recap Google analytics.”   When the time comes you can have all the articles you need in one place.

I personally “clip” anything I find that is useful to me or could be for my clients or my readers. When I need a recap post, I have tons of articles to choose from.  When you find something great, remember the possibility of recaps and tag accordingly.

Use Infographics, Video, Presentations and More with Evernote

There are many items out there that you can use in your blog posts to supplement the information you already provide.

To be totally honest, there are times that I have nothing to write about or I just don’t have time to write a long blog post. So I dig into things I have saved in Evernote to help me out.

I have categories for infographics, videos and Slideshares. Most of the time, items like these just need an intro paragraph or two and I have a blog post.  Evernote can be an amazing backup tool for writers that have no time or have writer’s block.

To organize these types of items effectively, I have to “tag” well.  Some of the tags I use are:

• How To
• Guide
• Year
• Author’s Name
• Tips
• Things to Avoid
• Area of Use: Education, Humor, Example, Diagram
• Subjects / Topics: All of them. Sometimes a media item covers more than one subject, so I list them all in tags.

Save Whatever Might Be of Use to You Later

Blogging is not easy and keeping a blog active is not easy. If you are responsible for keeping a blog going, I suggest you take advantage of the free version of Evernote. Create a library of information that you think is important and could be helpful to you. Find a way to collect items that will help you with blogging. Whether it be ideas or items to use.

You can’t remember everything so let Evernote remember for you. I use it daily and it has helped me with blog posts more than I could ever explain. I hope it can help you too.

Also check out the features of the business version of Evernote.

The post How to Use Evernote to Help You Keep Your Blog Active appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Sharing needs to be spaced out a bit, but who has time to sit and share every 30 minutes to an hour? With the Buffer App, I don’t have to sit in front of a computer all day to share to my Twitter account, Facebook account, Facebook pages and Linkedin. Buffer does it all for me and it can help you as well.

What Is the Social Sharing App, Buffer?

It is an app tool that allows you to share and schedule from your browser, your mobile device or from Web pages. With Buffer you can share images, video, articles, news and more. This tool is fast and simple. You can use Buffer to manage your social accounts and your clients’ accounts at the same time.

What Accounts You Can Add to Buffer

• More than one Facebook profile.
• More than one Facebook page.
• Twitter accounts.
• Linkedin account.
• App.net.

Creating a Schedule

For each profile you have added you can create a publishing schedule where you get to pick the days and times for the items you add to Buffer.  This allows you to have diversity in publishing times across social accounts.

How to Add Items to Buffer

There are a lot of ways to add things to Buffer and their site lists each of the ways. I am going to review the main ways I add to Buffer just to make things simpler.

Login in to Buffer

You can login to Buffer from anywhere and add things to share socially. You login and just click on a box that says “What do you want to Share.” When you do, the box below appears and allows you to add text, a link and then lets you choose which accounts to share the info with.

Share from Your Browser Extension

If you are reading an article or news item you want to share you can just click on the Buffer icon extension in your browser. Below is a picture of what the icon looks like in Chrome.

When you click on the icon, a box pops up that allows you to decide which social accounts you want to share the page, article, video or image with. It pulls in a thumbnail of the image on the page, link and excerpt for social networks like Facebook and Linkedin. Here is what it looks like:

Mobile Devices

Buffer has apps for multiple mobile devices that allow you to share and also keep track of what has been shared:

Web Pages with Buffer Share Buttons

Many websites have a Buffer share button that allows readers to add items to their queue straight from a Web page.

These buttons also keep track of the number of times the item has been shared with Buffer.

Buffer Analytics

Buffer also keeps track of sharing data for each social account and each item shared. This data can help you see how engaged your audience is, which audience is more engaged in regards to network vs. network, what types of shared items do best with your audience, track number of clicks and it also keeps a nice clean record of what you have shared in the past. This is great data to have.

Other Buffer Options

Buffer has a free version and a paid version. The paid version gives you a lot more freedom for $10 a month. The paid version also allows you to add team members so it isn’t just up to one person to run and maintain all your social accounts. Buffer also has a link shortening function and integrates other services that you can use (free option).

Why I Use It

I use Buffer for several reasons, but the main reason is that it saves me time. It also allows my social accounts to remain active when I can’t be due to meetings or just life. The analytics are very informative and helpful to me, especially in regards to clicks on Facebook, which I wasn’t able to monitor before. It allows me to share with client accounts and track the data for them as well.

This is one tool that is so easy to use that it is actually faster than sharing by hand. It is fast and simple and makes my life easier. I recommend you try the free version and see how it works for you.

Mobile Image Credit: Apple / Buffer

The post The Buffer Social App May Be A Time Saver for You appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Why Blogs Are Useful

Service related business blogs are useful for helping visitors/readers understand that the business is good at what they do and that the company can be trusted. People want to hire “experts” and real “professionals.”

Blogs Help to Build Trust 

A business blog can help people begin to trust the company and their skills. If a company is the best at what they do, their blog is a resource to show people how and why they are the best.

Blogs Educate Visitors

Blogs are also great for educating visitors and education should be a priority. When you are educating, you are giving to the reader. Educational articles that offer information that the everyday person can use are often shared.

You want people to share your articles because it helps your presence, branding and reputation. Shared articles can also result in new sales. You get a lot of advertising for very little investment.

Blogs Help With Search Engine Rank

Your blog should also help you with search engine rankings. Every business needs the search engines to see quality, unique content, which is a critical aspect of SEO (search engine optimization) today. You also want them to determine that your site is about a particular subject or service(s). You want them to see that you are offering much better educational information than your competitors. You want your site and blog to be the one offering the best information locally. To be ranked well you need to offer information that deserves to be ranked well.

Google wants sites to educate and/or inform their users. They want articles that will meet the needs and answer the questions of their users. With some research and planning your website and blog can meet this need for Google and the result is better rankings – if you do it right.

Blogs Can Present a Break Down of Each Service You Offer

Businesses that offer services often do not realize that there is a lot to discuss. Often businesses go blank and are not sure what to blog about.

Consider breaking down and presenting each of your services individually.

What to Blog About: 11 Blog Post Ideas

Below are eleven ideas which can be broken off into several other ideas that your business can use to create blog posts. When you are reading this list, keep in mind that you can – and should – do this for every service your business offers:

• What is this service? Define it and define all the words people may not know related to the service. Example: Main service -> “What is Internet marketing?” Related services -> “What is SEO?” And, “What is Reputation Management?”
• Who needs this service?
• The negatives of not having this service.
• Unknown benefits of paying for this service.
• 10 reasons why the reader needs this service.
• 5-10 types of people that must have this service.
• What to look for in a company that offers this service.
• 5-10 things to avoid when hiring a company that offers this service.
• Common mistakes companies make when offering this service.
• 5-10 things to look for when hiring a company that offers this service.
• When you are discussing “Service A,” create an article about related services and how they serve one another.

A Few More Blogging Tips

The above blogging ideas I listed can be splintered off into other ideas that could benefit your business. I suggest that every time you get an idea for a blog post you write it down somewhere; it is always easy to forget ideas when you have a lot of responsibilities.

Sit down with your marketing team or fellow employees and brainstorm about the ideas you have written down. Let people help the writer add great information to the articles. Writing blog articles is a lot easier and faster when people are giving the writer different ideas to write about.

Lastly, businesses really need to take the time to paste their articles into a program like Word and check for grammar and spelling issues. Bad grammar and spelling can make a business look really bad.

Blog Photo via Shutterstock

The post What to Blog About: 11 Ideas For Service Related Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

If you are hoping to become a guest blogger for a particular site, I recommend you review the following mistakes and avoid them.

Failure to Research What the Blog is About

Blogs that are devoted to a specific industry often want guest bloggers that have experience with that industry so they can offer educational information to the readers.

Currently I am an editor for a large blog that is focused on the search industry and it is obvious what the focus is to anyone that spends 2-3 minutes looking at the site. However, I get many emails from guest writers that say things like:

“Your blog would really benefit from my writings about choosing the right dog.”

Well, no it would not. Emails like this are irritating because they are a waste of my time. If I receive 100 emails a day from potential guest bloggers to go through, I don’t want to be wasting time on someone that has not even paid attention to what the blog is about.

Suggestion: Before you contact a blog about guest blogging please research what the blog is about and make sure that the topic you suggest is relevant.

Not Having the Experience to Write for a Blog

I know there are some guest bloggers out there that believe they can write about anything. Many people can write about “anything,” but to write something that offers quality information that readers can learn from and/or put into action right away would require an author that has significant experience with the subject at hand.

Blogs that are devoted to a specific industry often want guest bloggers that have experience with that industry so they can offer the educational information I discussed above. They are not looking for someone that can look at an article and rehash it and call it their own. Here is another example of emails I receive:

“I have written about fashion, wine, fine dining and dogs. Now I want to move into writing about SEO.”

Well, obviously this person doesn’t really know SEO so why would I publish them? What quality can they offer? If they don’t know SEO, aren’t the ideas in their articles really going to belong to someone else? Typically, there are writer’s guidelines on blogs and they are often specific about what type of writer they want.

Suggestion: Do not contact a blog about guest writing until you do the following:

• Take time to read the writers guidelines of each blog you are interested in writing for.
• Take some time to read the last 5-10 articles published and really be honest with yourself about whether or not you can offer the same kind of quality with the knowledge that you have.

Being Demanding When Not an Approved Writer Yet

Below is an exact sentence that I see probably 10 times a week. I believe this is because somewhere guest bloggers have suggested using a template when reaching out for guest blogging opportunities. FYI, the sentence below comes across rude and demanding to editors:

“I will send you an article that will need to be published within 48 hours and I will require 3 links with the anchor text of my choosing back to my websites.”

So why is this offensive to editors?

There are a few reasons:

• Editors often schedule weeks ahead of time and have promised spots to writers. They are not going to bump someone from their spot just so a new writer can be published within in 48 hours.
• An active blog has many posts coming in and it can take weeks to read through them. What makes a writer so special that their article should be read, edited, uploaded and scheduled within 48 hours?
• Editors don’t work for the new guest writer; they work for the blog and the blog’s owners. They have obligations and responsibilities; editors don’t just “edit.” Most of the time if an editor had to rush to get something published within 48 hours they would not be meeting the job’s obligations and responsibilities.
• And lastly, big blogs are essentially doing a favor for the writer by publishing their work so approaching an editor with “demands” is rude.

Know Your Limitations

Guest blogging can be a really good thing for a writer. It can help you build a reputation, help you with link building and it can help with branding. However, you cannot just assume that you can send a template letter to every type of blog and make all the editors excited about what you have to offer.

You must do your research about each blog you want to write for. You have to be honest with yourself about your limitations and you have to create something wonderful. Great blogs want unique, quality content that educates and offers usable information the reader can use.

If you cannot offer this to a blog due to lack of experience than you should not approach the blog at all.

Blog Error Photo via Shutterstock

The post 3 Guest Blogging Mistakes to Avoid appeared first on Small Business Trends.

I am also going to explain how this tool can be beneficial for the everyday business, not just those that teach or train others.

Sensei’s WordPress Learning Management Plugin Options

This learning management plugin offers you the ability to create an online course for in-house use or you can offer a paid course for others. With Sensei you can:

• Create multiple courses.
• Write lessons for each course.
• Add lesson length and complexity information for students.
• Embed video into lessons.
• Add multiple choice quizzes to test your employees or students.
• Set a required quiz percentage for students to pass.
• Let students save quiz progress and return to finish it at a later date.
• Set up pre-requisites for both courses and lessons. (With this option you can ensure that students don’t move ahead and complete courses/lessons in order.)
• Keep up with who is registered, see overviews of content and see grades of students with course analytics.
• Let students monitor their progress on active courses and also see which courses they have completed with the student dashboard.

This Tool Can Be Beneficial for Any Business

Obviously this is a great tool for someone like me that trains businesses. But when I saw Sensei, I immediately started thinking of how my clients could use it as well.

Here are some examples of how you can use this tool:

New Employee Training

Many businesses have a set of rules and procedures they want new employees to learn, but how can you really be sure they have learned what they need to know?

Create lessons and quizzes in Sensei.  Before the employee can begin working they must be able to pass the tests you have created and to do that they have study the lessons.

New Training for Current Employees

Do you have a new system you want your employees to learn, but you’re not sure how if everyone has paid attention?

Well, this could be your answer. Create courses for current employees and set a required percentage on quizzes for them to pass. With training and tests in place there is no excuse for mistakes.

Restaurants

It is critical that all of your staff knows the menu well and can answer questions appropriately. In fact, it can be a matter of life and death when it comes to allergies your customers may have.

With Sensei you can make sure your employees know your menu like the back of their hand by offering them a fantastic teaching tool and required tests. There are also a variety of checkout systems restaurants use to monitor sales and money.

With Sensei, you can make sure everyone knows how to use your system and there are no “I didn’t know” excuses.

Businesses with Required Procedures

Many businesses need all employees to follow a defined list of procedures and when procedures are missed, the quality can be minimized. Why not teach new employees your step-by-step procedures with an online course?

You can also create a course for current employees as a refresher.

Safety

All businesses have safety procedures in place, but some have more than others. Make sure every employee you have knows safety procedures perfectly. For many businesses, proof of education of employees is a factor in insurance and workman’s comp.

Use Sensei as part of your safety training and with the course analytics, you have proof of employee grades.  Every time your safety procedures are updated you can create a new lesson or course for them to use.

What You Need to Know

Sensei is a plugin for WordPress, meaning without a WP site the tool will not help you. Right now the introductory price is $79 for one site, but will go up to $99 soon. There are also prices for multiple sites and unlimited use as well. You can integrate WooCommerce into Sensei for course payment options.

This first version of Sensei is just the beginning. While it offers a lot now, it will offer more in the future. You can find more information at Woothemes.

The post You Can Now Teach With WordPress appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Why does this matter?

We’ll get to that in a bit.  But first, those new to Twitter sometimes automatically assume that someone with large follower numbers, meaning the number of people that follow a Twitter user, could be someone they need to follow.

In some cases that is true – and in many cases it is not.

Who to Follow on Twitter?

First Ask Yourself, “What Are You Using Twitter For?”

If you are using Twitter to find good information for your business and industry, than you may want to only select a few people to follow. If your goal is to get a lot of Twitter followers for whatever reason, than you could follow a lot of people and see who follows you back.

Figure out why you want to use Twitter and what your goal is.

If you are looking for entertainment, than using Twitter can be fairly simple. But if you are looking to follow people that can offer you the type of information and ideas you are looking for – then you need to choose people to follow carefully.

Check Follower vs. Following Numbers

There are a lot of folks out there with tens of thousands of followers, but they also follow tens of thousands of people. It is fairly easy to get a lot of followers when you follow a lot of people. Therefore, having a lot of followers doesn’t automatically mean that the person has good information to share or can offer you any value.

If you check out someone like @dannysullivan, a man deeply respected in the SEO industry, you will see that as of right now he has 295,049 followers and he follows 3,186. It is quite obvious that Danny didn’t follow a lot of people to get this large number of followers. He has a large following because he offers great information, he is respected and he is who most of us consider to be one of the “top dogs” in our industry.

When Danny tweets, talks or writes – we all retweet, listen and clip to Evernote.

If you see that someone has 5,000 followers, but follows 200 then you can assume that a good number of people believe that person has something valuable to offer on Twitter. You can follow them and see if they do. If they don’t you can just unfollow them (give them a week before you decide).  There are many people out there with less than 5-10K followers with great information to provide.

Normal people don’t have “celeb follower” numbers.

A Tip on Finding Great People to Follow

When I first started using Twitter, I had about 40 known industry writers that I immediately followed. That obviously wasn’t a lot, but I didn’t want a lot of junk I had to sift through.  I wanted great information that would give me what I was looking for.

So I watched the Twitter stream and observed, for months, who the people I followed spoke with – and also who they followed. This is how I found some of the best people out there to provide me with the information I really need and want.

In April of this year, I will have been on Twitter for 5 years. I have met a ton of people in those 5 years and have made a lot of industry friends at conferences and online. However, I don’t follow them all on Twitter because I use Twitter for a specific purpose, to get information.  Above I mentioned that I only follow 285 people and this is why. I choose carefully and I believe that the people I follow offer me fantastic information daily. I do add people from time to time, but if they are not educating me – I don’t have an interest in their Twitter stream.

I add friendly folks that I have personally met to Facebook and I engage there.  But Twitter is a business and education tool for me.

In Conclusion

Don’t be fooled by some people claiming they are hot shots on Twitter because they have a lot of followers. It is easy to get – and even buy – followers. Choose people that provide you with what you need and find people that others respect. You can see who gets respect in the follower / following ratio.

I also want to say that there are some people/businesses out there that have an almost equal number of followers / following that offer fantastic information. They sometimes put everyone they follow into defined lists that educated them or meet their needs.

I am not saying to rule out people with an equal ration.  I am just saying – don’t be fooled by those with large follower numbers.  Make sure whoever you follow meets your goals and wants on Twitter.

Twitter Photo via Shutterstock

The post You Should Consider These Things When Choosing Who To Follow On Twitter appeared first on Small Business Trends.

You Give Me Nothing

When I go to a blog, I am often pulled in by the headline. My hope is that I am going to learn something new and/or be educated. I want facts I can use and ideas to enhance my creativity and work. It is very obvious that articles that educate pull in readers. Education should be a goal for all blogs.

When I go to a blog post that has basically rehashed ideas from another article (or articles) I have already read, I lose faith in the writer. A good writer comes up with their own ideas and suggestions and those are the writers I want to see.

I am perfectly fine with someone making points about another article and putting their own spin on it, but if it is a summary of what I have already read, I get aggravated. My time has been wasted and I just don’t go back.

As an editor for several blogs, I can tell you that rehashed content is not published because the lack of quality and uniqueness hurts the blog.

Point to Remember:  If you want a successful blog, you have to offer something to your readers. Think of your blog posts as gifts. Gifts are unique and given to specific people with specific interests. Your blog posts should be focused on a specific audience and you should be giving something unique to those readers.

Your Site is Too Loud

You want people to see the best you have to offer. Sometimes clutter and colorful items on the site overtake the quality information you provide. You don’t want this to happen.

I don’t think I have ADD, but on certain websites I feel like I must have it. When I visit a website with too much stuff all over the page I get distracted to the point that my eyes cannot focus on the article I am trying to read (no matter how hard I try). My eyes constantly drift to colors, to the top or sides, and to ads that change often. I thought that this was just an issue I had for a while and then, through the years, I have had many friends, clients and industry acquaintances tell me they have the same problem.

I have a hectic work day and I am typically in a rush to read through things. The blogs that I read typically offer me, and my eyes, a clean and soft place to read. Clean blog layouts are almost comforting because I don’t have to force myself to focus. Easy-to-read, informational  blogs with unique content I return to often. Blogs can have a full sidebar of information and still offer an easy blog to read.

Point to Remember:  I understand that many blogs need to make money and they have ads sprinkled throughout the site. There is nothing wrong with that, but if your ads are so distracting that people cannot read the quality you worked to create, then you don’t have a shot at good traffic or making money anyway. Choose ads wisely or create ads that mesh well with your color scheme.

Text is Too Small or Font Is Difficult to Read

I know most people will say “just increase the size of the text” with the browser or computer when reading, but it is not always that simple. Sometimes text is so small that when you zoom in, you have to constantly work to read by scrolling up and down and side-to-side. I don’t have time to do that (and it is irritating).

Another issue is, people choosing fancy fonts that look really nice, but are often difficult to read (especially when the font size is too small). There are universal fonts that work on all browsers and are known to be very readable on the Web. I recommend using one of those. You can always use font replacements and other techniques to add some customization to headlines, but the main text needs to be very readable.

Also, think about the background color of your site versus the color of your font. If you are creating something really unique, that is great. But ask at least 10 friends if they think the text is readable.

Point to Remember:  Blogs with small text, difficult to read fonts and backgrounds that make reading difficult often push readers away. Make reading easy and pleasurable for your visitors.

There Are No Headlines

I absolutely cannot read a blog with many paragraphs and no headlines, or at least something else to break up the paragraphs. I have heard the same thing from many people and the importance of headlines has been written about often.  I blog about headlines often because I think they are really important. Headlines serve multiple purposes for the reader and the blog itself.

Here are just a few:

• They help with scannability.
• The direction of the article is automatically clear.
• Subjects in headlines can interest a possible reader.
• They serve an SEO purpose.
• They serve as memory devices (for the article itself and important tips).
• They simply make things easier to read
• They can be used to make your main critical points abundently clear.

Point to Remember:  Headlines and supporting images are always good for readability and for creating a spot in the memory of a reader’s mind. Think of your readers and what headlines would attract their attention. Test headlines out to see how effective they are.

Four Quick and Simple Things to Change

The four blog mistakes and reasons I outlined can be fairly simple to change. I know some clients, friends and social pals have wanted to avoid creating a whole new blog design and they made changes like these that worked well.  However, there were some blogs that just needed a whole new look – and the new “look and feel” has paid off.

If you are serious about blogging, please give the reader something fantastic and make it easy for your readers to see what you’re offering.

Overwhelming Photo via Shutterstock

The post 4 Blog Mistakes: Reasons People Do Not Read Your Blog appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Site Errors in Google Webmaster Tools

All websites should be set up in Google Webmaster Tools. Here is why:

In Google Webmaster Tools you can look at “Health” and then “Crawl Errors.” In this area you can see if your site has had any downtime that Google picked up as a result of DNS or server connectivity errors.

This is important information for you because if your site is consistently having crawl errors it could affect how your site ranks, but more importantly when your site is down or not working – you are not making money. Checking crawl errors is really important when you are paying for cheap hosting. Sometimes you never know what kind of service you are actually getting.

Links and Navigation

Most sites have links in sidebars, headers, footers and throughout the pages. Some of those links push site visitors to make a sale and you want to make sure all of your links are working properly. Do random checks to make sure everything is working, especiallywhen you have employees updating the site often.

Navigation is also important to check often:

• Are your drop-downs working?
• How do they work on mobile devices?
• Are all the tabs taking to you to the right pages?

Sometimes when there are updates to CMS platforms or servers, things on a website break. Always make sure that the areas you need working properly to make a sale are, in fact, working.

Contact Forms and Email

One common problem we see are contact forms that are not working properly for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the contact form will let you know when someone hits “submit” that they are not working. But others will look as though the message was sent. When potential customers don’t get a reply, they move on to another company.

Sometimes contact forms entries make it to the right email address, but they end up in Spam on a consistent basis. These are issues that can be fixed. Find any errors and fix them.  Keep in mind that things may be working well now, but they may not next week so testing your forms is a good idea.

Tip for Business Owners: When you are testing out contact forms, sometimes it is a good idea to use a different email and see how long it takes for your staff to reply. You can also see if their responses are appropriate.

Performance on Mobile Devices

Things to check on mobile devices:

• Navigation:  How easy or hard is it to use on mobile?
• Links:  Are they easy to see and use?
• Contact Forms:  Make sure they function correctly.
• Phone Numbers:  Can people see them? Can they click to call on a mobile device?
• Downloadable Items:  Do they open on mobile devices?
• Logins for Payments or Clients
• Page Loading:  Do the pages load? Do they look right? Can users read your content?
• Email Links: Do they work?
• Apps, Plugins, Modules or Scripts:  Is everything functioning as it should?

Remember that mobile software changes consistently so checking various parts of your website often is the smart thing to do.

Pages

I know it sounds obvious, but it is important that you check your main pages often:

• How do they look?
• Are the pages running slow?
• Do you see any script errors?

When websites are being updated often it is critical to check and re-check the pages often. Someone could upload an image that is too big and mess up the look of the site and/or slow down the load time. Someone could add a script that is not working or upload a plugin in WordPress that messes up content in some way.

Check your pages often and make sure you check all critical pages after updates just to ensure all is well.

Five Critical Areas

The five areas I have mentioned are really important to review and review often. These are basic parts of your site that need to work well to make a sale and bring in new clients. Businesses spend a lot of time and money to have a website.

Spending a little time making sure it is working is required to ensure your website represents your company well and to also make sure the site is making you money.

The post 5 Things Business Owners Need to Review for Their Website appeared first on Small Business Trends.