#1 - If you or someone you know is thinking about starting a business, that Free Business Launchpad eBook will help.

#2 - To download the eBook, you sign up for an email tip list on creative ways to use virtual assistants to enhance your buzz marketing.  Now all the visitors here should be interested in THAT.

30 Day Virtual Assistant Business Launch Pad

Thinking about launching a Virtual Assistant Business?

I started out writing this eBook as a members-only kind of resource.  Then I realized it could be very valuable to anyone starting any kind of home-based or small business.

People were getting lost in what seems like overwhelming issues, so we lay it out day by day and make it easy to move from idea to income in 30 days.

We are giving it away.  Click here to get your copy.

Since we have launched several ventures, we know the basic stuff you need to get in place, and how important it is to focus on generating revenue quickly.  If you are thinking about starting a business or are trying to figure out what things need done for a business you recently started, this resource is for you.

The question is not whether online will work for you.  The very legitimate question is, Do you have the time and inclination to use online tools to extend what you are doing?

I do not do direct mail.  I don’t want to, and while I may be losing out on some clients, I do not care because I do not believe in direct mail as an effective marketing tool in most cases.

For many business owners, they have a website, but they do not believe in internet marketing.  That is fine as well.  It is your choice, and it is less about whether it works or not, and more about your inclination to try to do it right.

Something that is often lost is that online extends off-line.  Here are some ideas on how to use your real-world marketing and online marketing to form a great marketing alliance.

1. Speech Teaser – When you give a speech, mention the limited time but let the audience know where to go on your website to find a video of 5 more secret tips.  Ideally it is after they sign up for the newsletter.
2. Direct Mail – Go to the website and sign in to get your secret discount code – or to see if you have won a prize.
3. Brochure – Expand your paper brochure with a website address that has video of your product, service, etc.
4. Business Card – Don’t just list your main website.  List your blog or other resources.  Use the back of your business card to add value.
5. Networking – When you have a chance to meet people and work with people, use sites like LinkedIn to connect and leave testimonials and endorsements.
6. Cold Calling – When you call someone and they are interested in your offer, get their email and send them a link or two to video or resources that will interest them but not be too sales oriented.
7. Print – Always have ways to get more information by visiting the website.  I recently saw a whole proposal done as a public blog to demonstrate the companies commitment to social media.
8. Advertising – No matter what your advertising, they should be able to explore the topic more by going online.

If you are doing all of these things, you could say that you are doing Internet Marketing, you could say you are doing traditional marketing, or you could just say you are a damn fine marketer.

What are 10 things you should outsource to a virtual buzz assistant?

1. LinkedIn Approval - If you are openly linking to people on linked is, as I do, it is silly to be approving those links yourself.  You could get a lot more mileage if you have that approval and polite email reply outsourced.
2.  Asking Bloggers to Write About You - If you are researching blogs in your industry and sending them a polite request to link to your site or write about your product, do not do this work yourself.
3. Reciprocal Connections - I tend to follow people that follow me on twitter if they are active.  I also approve friendships in many networks and return the connection.  But I do not need to do those things myself.
4. Light Blog Writing - If you want to have more blog posts, consider hiring a virtual buzz assistant to write a daily summary on industry news - in addition to your regular posts.
5. Account Creation - Do you need help creating and managing your many social network accounts?  Don’t do it yourself unless your time is worth next to nothing.
6. Interlinking - All your accounts and sites perform better when they occasionally link to each other.  An assistant that is managing these accounts for you can also link to a few resources every day.
7. Correspondence - View Yaro Starak’s piece on this. Reducing your activities to critical business building activities is best for you in the long term.

Keep in mind I am a huge fan of creating great relationships.  But given the choice of a few stronger 1 on 1 relationships vs. more free time to create more great content for all readers, I will usually take the free time to write.  And a good assistant will forward me the connections that make sense.

However, they are an organization trying to help out, so I tried to work it into a post [the one you are reading now].

The point I am making is that there are definitely some better blogs to email about your product, website, etc.  However, you never know when someone will take what you are doing and make it into a relevant post for their product or service, so contacting bloggers outside of your target may not get as high of a conversion, but it can get results.

I could hand build a great pop up window with aWeber, but it was going to be a lot of work, so I kept putting it off.

Then I tried Floating Window.  It more than doubled my sign up rate, it integrates with my aWeber account and it really is as simple as they show in this video.

There was one thing that I did not like.  I could not have it only pop up once per visit.  So to solve that, I added it only to the front page, but not the sub pages, that still use a simpleraWeber form.

If you want to save time, impress people with a great pop-up email offer and get more people to opt into your email list, I recommend Floating Window.

The great thing about blogging software like Wordpress is that it is search engine friendly.

Does that mean your site is as optimized as it can be? No. But you have a good base to start from.

One thing you can do with your Wordpress blog is to optimize the permalinks to use the title as the default link text. This strengthens the title words for the page.

The following image shows where to put the custom code. The code is /%postname%-%post_id%.htm

The code makes the link the post name and the post ID (to avoid duplication.) This is only one option, but it is a good way to set it and forget it and your posts will get better search engine results..

Another important element of SEO on your Wordpress site is the All in one SEO pack. This is a free plug-in that you can install on Wordpress that will let you set the meta tag information for the site and better target your keywords. Just search for it in the wordpress plug-in website.

The reason we want to bring this to your attention before you get too far along is because you do not want to publish a lot of information and then modify the url after it has already been indexed by search engines. It is much easier to get it set up correctly from the beginning.

The Best SEO may be NO SEO?

OK, I would not go that far.

Search Engine Optimization will always help. However, if you have a few hours to invest in your website, you should create more great content instead of worrying about modifying your meta tags. I saw one client that published 15 articles per week for years get great search engine results, even though they did not care about search engine results.  They were only publishing for their employees.

Great information, especially if it gets linked to by other people, will help you get noticed quickly in search engines.

You can set up a Wordpress Blog in a few minutes at www.outstandahosting.com and buy a great template at template monster.

“Today you are trading in social currency.  You may be rich, or you may be poor, but it is the currency of the future whether you like it or not.”

If the IRS came knocking at your young business, you gave them the shoe box of transactions and brewed them some coffee while they sat at your kitchen table and reviewed a whole year’s worth of transaction.  If you have been in business for a while, you know how quickly that changes.  Multiple checking accounts, automatic transactions left and right, loans, credit cards, balance transfers….

For a more mature company, an audit is a hassle if you have to do it yourself.

Social Networking seems just as confusing and out of control as finances can be.  It all started out easy.  No need to keep lots of records, you are just trying out that new social media tool…

Doing taxes, and auditing your own financials is not fun.  But if you were not forced to do it periodically, imagine what a mess you could have after a few years.

Your Social Media Efforts Need Audited

Your social media efforts produce important things for you, even if you are not taking full advantage of them.

1. Connections - Also known as lists of people
2. Feeds - Avenues to publish information other people see
3. Access - Permission to publish on other websites

Much like scheduling auto-payments for a bill, many of these tools automatically publish information or grow your network.  It is easy to forget it is happening.

Here are recommendations to getting the most out of your social media effort.

1. Have a real strategy - Who would you like to connect with and what do you have to offer them?
2. Have a reason for them to sign up to an email list - Email is still #1 when used correctly.  What can you offer people in your many online groups to entice them to sign up directly with you for email?
3. Track all your accounts - Keep a spreadsheet of accounts, when you signed up, password, etc.
4. Audit your profile and settings at least twice per year.  You will find all kinds of things have changed, but you have not updated them.
5. Look for new integration opportunities - Social media is doing a better job of integrating and standardizing than financial tools are, in my opinion.  (Yes, financial is a bit harder, I know)

Perpetual Beta Social Media

Social media sites are constantly evolving.  If not the tool itself, then some other tool that will take data from a site and display it within another tool.  Crazy!

You have to keep up, or your image will get muddled or stale.  The good news is that there are social media bookkeepers.  A good virtual assistant can help you organize the tools, track progress and outcome, grow your connections and audit your profiles -  often in a few hours per month.  The Virtual Buzz Assistant network was created because of the incredible need for this kind of help.  It helps people develop their own Virtual Buzz Assistant business and help busy professionals that understand the importance of social media to find the help they need.

No sales pitch here - you can do it all yourself right after you update Quickbooks and finish your weekly payroll.

Here is a list of things I try to do each day to grow my business waistline over time.

1. Meet Someone New
2. Post something to my blog
3. Twitter or other social media
4. Generate New Income
5. Follow up with someone
6. Work on new product development
7. Improve something we currently do

Do I do all these things every day?  No.  And that is why I am not as successful as I could be.

Use the comments below to let us know what your list looks like.

Shama Hyder did a research study on Twitter and the results are unfortunately in favor of not doing Employee Evangelism.  While twitter can be a great tool for marketing, it is also a great way to procrastinate and escape from the daily grind.  I have to admit that I expected that.

I also see a huge opportunity here.  If people are in businesses wasting time on Twitter, that is a great audience for you to tap into.  That is why you may not want to have your employees using twitter at work, but you definitely want to hire a Virtual Buzz Assistant to help you develop and bond with a great group of time wasters.

A Virtual Buzz Assistant is not going to impersonate you, but you can always set up an account that represents your organization and develop an audience of followers that care about the twitter feed.

You should check out Shama’s blog as well for information on using FaceBook.

Added Later: John Cow talks about twitter as well - The debate rages.

And I also know that many of you are going to enjoy the holiday this long weekend, and you could not care less about buzz marketing - and you shouldn’t.  Go have fun.

But some of you are from other countries and couldn’t care about the 4th, so this is for you.

I added a floating window that is integrated with aWeber to the front of my blog and have doubled the conversion rate.  It is early yet, but I like how it is trending.

I know that the window could be built by hand, but for the $47 dollars it really sped up the process.  And I can keep going back and using it to build additional ads.

The only reason I did not roll it out on the sub-pages of the blog is because there is no way to make it only pop up once per session.  So I added it to the top page, and then use the older (and less fancy) aWeber pop-ups below that, because they can show up once and then not again until the next visit.

Long term I may or may not keep it.  Everything depends on the numbers, but I’ve been planning on doing something nicer like that for a long time, and that software made it super fast, so I stopped procrastinating.

I cannot stress enough the importance of registering and maintaining your own domain name.  I just got a call from a client that had let a previous host register his domain name for him, and every year it has been a huge headache and far more expensive than it should be.

This year he finally is transferring it to his own oversight, but he waited until the last day and now it is stuck in limbo because he cannot access his email, which is tied to the domain (he should have used a different email that would not go down if the domain did.)

I know many people are not technical and they just want someone to take care of it for them, but this is kind of like letting someone else manage your telephone number.  It is better to just pay that bill on your own because your phone is too important.

You can register and manage your own domain name at www.outstandahosting.com - and you will get 100% control of either hosting it there or hosting it elsewhere.  So when you are no longer happy with your web site host, they cannot hold you ransom - you just log into your domain management account and change where it resolves.

Here are 5 tips to keep your domain safe.

1. Use One Account for all Domain Names
   You may register a domain in one place, then find another place that is $1 per year less.  Don’t do it.  Just keep all your domains in the same place so you can manage them well.  Any price $10 per year or under is fair.
2. Never Use your Domain Email as the contact
   If you use the domain email and the domain goes down, you are stuck because you cannot approve changes that come via email.  Set up a gmail account or use different emails in the different contact areas.
3. Register Multiple Years
   Google likes to see that you register your domain for more than one year.  It is also easier to manage if you just pay for a few years up front, and will often save you a little money.
4. Multiple MX Records
   Your email gets forwarded to an email server by the MX Record.  You can have multiple MX Records as a failsafe for your email.  I have never seen an email host without at least two options.
5. A Record
   Your A record is where everything gets sent that is not otherwise specified.  In many cases, you only have to set up your A Record and your MX Record, and your hosts will take care of the rest.  Then if you later chance hosts, you just change these addresses - they cannot hold your domain hostage and overcharge you for changing.

I am writing this because it really is important that you take the 1/2 hour or so to understand it and do it yourself.  Even if it is a free add-on from your service provider, go straight to a registrar like www.outstandahosting.com and do it yourself.  Then things will just stay simple and you will never experience the frustration of transferring a domain.