February 15 03 SBC Small Business Newsletter

February 15, 2003

Table of Contents

Featured Resource - WinDriversBackup

Staff Article - THE LATEST, GREATEST SEARCH ENGINE TRICK!
Guest Article - USING VENTURE CAPITAL TO START UP OR EXPAND
Parting Comments

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Featured Resource

WinDriversBackup

If you've ever lost a hard drive and had to go through the laborious process of returning your computer to its former configuration, you know what a nightmare that can be. Finding all the correct drivers to make everything work properly sometimes seems impossible. WinDriversBackup is a free program that will backup all your essential Windows drivers and store them in a secure location of your choosing. Then, if the unthinkable happens, you'll be prepared. This is a tool we think everyone should have. Invest just a couple minutes of your time for some extra peace of mind.

http://www.jermar.com/wdrvbck.htm

Staff Article

THE LATEST, GREATEST SEARCH ENGINE TRICK!
by: Cary Christian

Are you salivating yet? Can't wait to get your paws on this one? Dying to see the look on your competitors' faces as you race past them in the rankings?

Well, forget about doorway pages, search engine cloaking, link farming, hidden keywords, and just about every other trick you've ever read about. Most of them won't do you much good. Many of them will get you banned by the search engines.

Many require you to manage multiple domains. Others require you to know a lot more programming than you care to know or else hire someone to do it for you or purchase software that accomplishes the task.

So what is this trick I'm talking about? How about honesty? That's right, honesty. So simple. So pure. So hard to come by online. So valuable when found. So powerful when used.

Some marketers will tell you that total honesty can be a tremendous handicap in business. But when was the last time a customer ever said that? Search engines represent your customers. When dealing with a search engine you ARE dealing with your potential customers, for the search engines are how they find you.

Did you know that 94 percent of Internet users in the US use search engines to find what they're looking for? And did you know that 81 percent of them ALWAYS find what they're looking for when they use the search engines? When they reach your site you want to make sure you're giving them exactly what they expected when they clicked through. Otherwise you're wasting a lot of bandwidth and tarnishing your image.

So how does one go about using honesty to get top rankings in the search engines?

It's simple really. In my opinion the basics of Internet marketing provide you with all you really need to succeed. Tricks and fads come and go and your competitors can use them, too, erasing any temporary advantage you might find very quickly.

But the one thing that's hard to overcome is excellent quality content. That's honesty. "This is who we are, this is what we provide, and this is how our products can help make your life easier and more enjoyable." Use your creativity to provide excellent content rather than apply the latest "trick" to your site. The only way your competitors can beat that is to come up with even better content. That's the way the Internet SHOULD be.

The search engines will reward good content. They always have and always will. In fact, you cannot get a listing in the Open Directory without good content.

Don't think for a minute that the people running the search engines aren't aware of the tricks being used to get top rankings. They read, too, and people who develop these tricks just love to write about them. The end result is that the useful life of one of these tricks is very short.

Take your site one page at a time. Think about what you want to say on that page. Write the content without thinking about search engine rankings. Just concentrate on writing the best content you can come up with.

Then, simply optimize the page using basic search engine optimization techniques. Your content will dictate the keywords you use to describe the page. Your content will dictate the title of the page. Your content will dictate any links that are appropriate. If it's a small site, your content might even dictate the domain name. Once you're done you have a page with great content and with all the meta tags accurately describing what that page is all about.

That's honesty.

And there still isn't a trick in the book that beats it long term!

Guest Article

USING VENTURE CAPITAL TO START UP OR EXPAND
By: Berwyn J. Kemp

The world of the venture capitalists is a multi-billion dollar world. At any point in time there are billions of dollars of venture capital available. For the start up, operational, or expansion needs of all kinds and sizes of businesses. And if you have a viable business or idea you can get the venture capital that you seek.

At one time venture capitalists favored the hi-tech cutting edge kinds of businesses. But, today the so called low-tech businesses are attracting venture capital as readily as only the hi-tech industry once did. And venture capital in amounts of several hundred thousand dollars to many millions of dollars can be attracted in 90 days or less. Here are some guidelines to help you get venture capital to start up, more effectively operate, or expand your business.

* You should start by evaluating your business or idea for it Demonstrable Economic Justification (DEJ). This evaluation will answer a number of very important questions. Such as: How big is the market for your products or services? What kind of competition do you have? What problem does your products or services solve? Does your market know they have the problem you solve? If not, large blocks of capital may be needed to educate your market, which could be a problem.

* Write a short executive summary of your venture capital idea or project. This executive summary should describe your proposal in enough detail to give prospective venture capitalists a clear idea of: Why you want this capital? How you’ll use this capital? What kind of competition you face? What kind of profits will this capital create? And, who is on your management team?

* Make a list of prospective venture capitalists who fund the kind of business you have. This list can be prepared from public sources of information. Such as, computer searches, phone book directories for major U.S. cities, and numerous other sources. The possibilities are endless for research sources that you can use.

* Send your executive summary to the venture capitalists that your research uncovers. And keep sending your executive summary around until you get a positive response from a number of prospective venture capitalists. The brief format of your executive summary makes it much easier for venture capitalists to review your proposal, than a full business plan will.

* Prepare a full business plan of your project or idea, once your get a positive response to your executive summary of 3 or more venture capitalists. In preparing your business plan you should try to keep it to between 15 to 20 pages, if at all possible. Because anything longer than this very seldom gets read. Yet you should list in the appendix of your business plan any other information or materials you have available. And if more information is needed by the venture capitalists, they can always request that specific information.

* Give more focus to the marketing section of your business plan than other sections. While, all sections of your business plan are important, most business plan focus on the profit projections. Yes, your profit projections are indeed important, but it is the marketing section that tell how those profit projections will be achieved.

Now use these guidelines to help you to get the venture capital that you seek. So that you can effectively start up, more effectively operate, or expand your business. Because the money is out there for you now all you have to do is go get it.

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Berwyn J. Kemp is a financial consultant who helps businesses obtain funding. For full information on his funding products and services. Or for a FREE subscription to his newsletter, The Business Funding Success News, email, mailto:bkemp@totalink.net

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