Starting a small business is a big and daunting task. Small business owners often make common mistakes, especially in the beginning. As a result, startup after startup goes up in flames. Many of them were great ideas but they were never able to prosper because they were cut short by preventable pitfalls. Read on to find out the top small business mistakes and how you can avoid them.

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Many people get confused between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Were you aware that hosting on WordPress.com is different than using the software from WordPress.org? They are quite different. WordPress is a Content Management System, web software for building websites, which can be downloaded from WordPress.org and installed on your web host. WordPress.com is a hosting platform where you can create a free blog without having to pay for a separate host, but without the ability to upload a custom theme, modify the code, or upload plugins. Your website URL will also end in ".wordpress.com". So which one is for you? Read on to find out. Read More »

Free WordPress themes are hugely sought-after, now that 1 in 3 websites today are created in WordPress. WordPress is widely considered the number one Content Management System (CMS), mainly for being amazingly user-friendly, highly customizable, open source, and having a plug-in directory comparable to the App Store. But one of the best things about WordPress is that you don't have to build your website from scratch; you can install a theme, then customize it to your liking, add some content and, voilà, you have a website! There are thousands of both free and premium WordPress themes readily available on the internet, but the trick is finding the best ones. The good news is that I've done that for you! Read More »

Email marketing can be a great way to reach customers, but it can be very difficult to capture your reader's genuine attention without looking like spam or a sales pitch. Who wants to put a ton of time and effort into email marketing when their emails are just going to get ignored, deleted or caught in a spam filter? There's a few tricks to successful email marketing for small businesses, which if done right can increase not only your conversions but also your website traffic, search engine rankings, etc. Plus, it's one of the most effective free-of-cost marketing tactics out there. Read on to discover the top 5 tips for email marketing geared specifically toward small business owners.

Have a site idea but don't know what domain name to register? Are all your first choices for domain names taken? Thinking about going with a .net, .biz or .co because you feel like you have no other choice? In this article, I'll walk you through a step-by-step process for your choosing a great SEO-friendly domain for your website. Read More »

There is a plethora of Content Management Systems (CMS) out there to choose from when deciding to create a blog or a website; WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. There are also a large number of free blogging services like Blogger, TypePad, etc, but using these sites is not recommended because you typically don't own the domain name. It will be something like mygreatblog.blogspot.com. This creates a couple of problems. One, if you want to move to your own domain in the future, you'll likely lose many of your readers. Two, it's a hassle because you have to copy and paste all the content you had built up over time into the new site. I highly recommend creating a self-hosted website, using a host like Bluehost.com for example, and installing a CMS. My number 1 recommended CMS for most small businesses is WordPress. "Why WordPress?", you may ask. Here are 5 reasons: Read More »

Many people feel that having a job at a good company is one of the most secure forms of income and that working for yourself is one of the least secure. I’ve always felt the exact opposite. Having a job is like having only one customer. All of your eggs are in one basket and if you mess up or if your employer falls on hard times, all of your income goes away in one fell swoop. Read More »