Developing a blog to accompany your business may be time consuming, especially if you’re not a good typist.  (My husband finds it takes him so long because he has to hunt and peck when typing.)
You might want to consider looking into voice recognition programs that enable you to write your blogs, letters, manuscripts and other work by using your voice.  These programs apparently have become better than the first versions developed so are handy and save you time.
I haven’t tried any yet, but at ProBlogger, Darren Rowse features a guest article with video, Speech Recognition for Bloggers – the Ultimate Guide, by …read more

Google has developed a new service…a free listing for one’s business.  Here you can fill out the requested information and find yourself listed on the Google map and Google guide.
If you have a home business, where you might not want walk in customers or have mainly an online business, you might want to reconsider your listing.  It appears that you must fill in the information about address which automatically appears on the map.
However, if you do want to be listed and gain this free promotion, you could check into it.  Check out www.Google.com/LocalBusinessCenter

The Internet has brought a new challenge to home businesses, in fact to any business.  Before the widespread application of the Internet, word-of-mouth or possibly a newspaper write-up could get the word out about your business, both positively and negatively.
An article at Like Chapaa, You Need to Know About Online Reputation Management, reinforces the idea of an Internet reputation and gives you “food for thought.”  You may not be able to control everything others write.  However, you can consider, before you write, what you are saying and keep it professional.  Your words, once written, whether on a blog, in a group, …read more

I recently saw a blog headline that business owners should spend time reading other business blogs to keep on top of what’s going on.  This brings up questions:

How much time should you spend reading?
What blogs should you read?
Will it truly benefit you from reading other blogs?

Much of this will depend on what type of home business you operate and the knowledge and information you need to gain.

Writers often need to collect information about their topic and find out what others are thinking.
Product producers need to be knowledgeable about market trends.
Business start-ups should find out what the competition is and whether …read more

Organizing your home business for greater productivity and profit becomes imperative, rather than conducting it on a hit-or-miss basis.  The organization involves everything from setting goals, planning daily-weekly-monthly-yearly strategies to having an efficient work space.
You may want to check out my blog, My Organized Biz, to pick up organizational business tips, as well as some for your life in general.  Some are as simple as desk organizers and calendars to computer programs that will help you plan. 
I find wherever I go, I’m on the lookout for more efficient ways to conduct my business and my life.  Today, when I was …read more

Yesterday I referred you to C. Hope Clark’s article about web sites and what you need to do to draw traffic.  Hope’s advice also can apply to blogs you set up for your home business.
Laura Spencer, at Writing Thoughts, has some additional thoughts about what could be wrong with your business web site: One most common problem that many companies overlook is the quality of the writing on their website and the quality of writing in their printed materials.
In her blog post, Professional Writing – A Key Component to a Professional Image, gives valid suggestions on how to keep your …read more

Do you want to leave your job (or perhaps have been forced to leave it due to the downturn in the economy) and start your own business?  Perhaps you simply want a back-up in place in case you do lose your regular job.
“Where do I start?” you wonder.
Kristin Marquet, at Women on Business, has some tips for doing marketing research and setting up a business plan in Want to work for yourself but don’t know where to start.
Sometimes you have an idea of what you want to do, but then must determine where your market is and how to reach it.  …read more

Do you run your home business from a PDA?  I don’t mean that you have a PDA, but that your entire business is managed using that PDA.
My new hairdresser runs her shop from a Blackberry.  She uses it as her business phone, she keeps appointments and all her customer contacts information on it, and she uses it for paying bills through online bill pay (although she does have a laptop where she has her accounting program).
In the same way, I have a PDA that I use as my main phone and I keep my appointments and contact information on it, …read more

If you were looking for places to work in your home business in your community, where would you go to check out the jobs offered?
What if you were looking for someone for a short-term job or contract work for your home business?  Would you look in the newspaper?  Online? Where?  Next time you are looking for work or for someone to do some work for you, consider Craigslist.org.
A friend said she was looking for a receptionist after her receptionist quit.  She used to put ads in the local newspaper, but she decided she would try Craistlist.  She was amazed at …read more

If your home business sells locally, there are a number of online sources you can use to reach your local market. Except for the first one, which is a phone call service, they charge in one of two ways:
CPC – cost per click – you pay for each time someone clicks on your ad.
OR, CPM – cost per thousand – cost per thousand page views. You get charged for every thousand times that your ad is viewed.
I don’t know which is better, but it makes sense to me that CPC is more meaningful, since you only get changed if …read more