Entrepreneurship and Incubation News

By Paul B. Brown

Life is what happens while you are making other plans.

–John Lennon 

To prove the headline–and explain why everyone will have to become an entrepreneur–we need to talk about how the odds say the swirling global economy is going whisk you out of a job.

But since “nothing is constant but change”  was probably already a cliché when the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said it 2700 years ago, we need to make the point another way.

Try this.

Think back 20 years. On a random Saturday morning, you slip on your American made polo shirt, and made in the U.S.A. blue jeans, and while walking downtown you wonder if that new hot CD you want—the one that has been sold out forever—is finally available. Spotting a pay phone, you get the number for a record store you know is near by. Yes, they have a copy they will put aside for you, if you can get there within the hour. Not quite certain where the store is, you pull out a map and double check.

Read the full article here http://www.forbes.com/sites/actiontrumpseverything/2012/05/13/why-everyone-will-have-to-become-an-entrepreneur/

By Lori Kozlowski

To get off the ground, early stage companies need a lot of help. We often hear the word “lean” passed around the lexicon. One CEO, two engineers — and voila! A company.

But there may be more to launching a start-up than a killer app or product. Many public relations, branding, and marketing professionals say start-ups need to think about their message to the public from the jump.

Even if your business is genius and sublime in every way, it could have little impact if it can’t make its way into the marketplace and stand out from similar enterprises (hint: you likely have competitors).

Read the full article here http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorikozlowski/2012/05/08/branding-your-start-up-how-soon-is-now/

BY COLLEEN DEBAISE

Networking goes hand in hand with running a successful business.

But many of us dread walking into a room and introducing ourselves to a bunch of strangers.

I’ve been asked to share my best networking tips at ameeting today of the National Association of Women Business Owners in Philadelphia. Here are the most valuable tips I’ve come across – and put to work myself – over the years:

1. Resist the urge to arrive late. It’s almost counter-intuitive, but showing up early at a networking event is a much better strategy than getting there on the later side. As a first attendee, you’ll notice that it’s calmer and quieter – and people won’t have settled into groups yet. It’s easier to find other people who don’t have conversation partners yet.

Read the full list here http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223468

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a new reality for all small businesses unless you can find a way to run your small business without the cost effective marketing available through the Internet. SEO is no longer the realm of online geeks or search marketers alone but of every business with something meaningful to market on the Web. Consider this your online crash course in the world of Internet marketing. And learn the basics of creating content that gets your business found online.

Marketing

A case study of small business SEO. How do you market an online business, or the online presence of a bricks and mortar business for that matter?Small Business Trends CEO, editor and founder and CEO of small business news and social media site BizSugar.com Anita Campbell chats at length with SEO guru Aaron Wall about the approach her Website has taken over the years to growing an audience. SEO Book

Get your online business on the map. How do you get your Website noticed with all the other contenders out there? One simple solution is inbound link SEO using everything from Squidoo lenses to article marketing to lead traffic and eventually ranking back to your site, says online marketer Lynne Gabriel. A word of caution though. The quality of links is a major factor and overdoing it may anger the search engine gods. Entrepreneur Chic

Read the full article here http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/10/small-business-news-entrepreneur-seo.html

BY DAN S. KENNEDY AND JEFF SLUTSKY

It’s strange, but many small-business people have no idea what a good regular customer is worth to their business. By calculating that figure, you should gain a better idea of what you’re willing to invest or risk to attract a good, regular customer. The calculation will also tell you how important it is to keep your existing customers happy. The cost of retaining a customer and even expanding a customer’s value is much less then getting a new customer.

To determine what you’re willing to invest in marketing, first discover what an average new customer is worth to you. To determine their value, answer the following questions:

1. What is your average sale (transaction amount)?

Read the full article here http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223426

By Aleyda Solis

Last friday I had the opportunity to give a presentation about SEO for Startups in Betabeers, the web developers event / meetup that started some time ago in Madrid with a lot of success and it is now organized in multiple cities.

The presentation goal was to show the opportunity that search engine optimization represents to entrepreneurs with a technical profile and introduce, more than the operative aspects -that in good part can be easily implemented if you have development knowledge- the importance of taking SEO into consideration when you are creating a product and the strategy to do it in the most transparent way, making the most out of the startup characteristics.

Read the full article here http://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/seo-for-startups-presentation/

BY HARRISON KRATZ

Search engines are the most powerful drivers of traffic to websites, so search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for any entrepreneur running a business online. A host of companies, including search giants Google and Bing, provide analytics tools to help website owners maximize their positioning in search engines and thus increase traffic. Here are some of the most popular SEO tools:

SEOmoz

SEOmoz offers paid products, free guides to SEO techniques, and a robust community for support and SEO-related discussions. SEOmoz Pro crawls the user’s site each week and monitors rankings of keywords. The application can watch competing websites for their keywords and link metrics, and analyze your site to suggest potential improvements. SEOmoz also offers a browser toolbar that provides statistics on keywords and other analytics while you surf the web. In addition to the features within the application, paid users receive access to SEOmoz labs, which includes extra tools and new services in development. Perhaps most importantly, though, is the knowledge of the community of over 250,000 users.

Read the full article here http://epiclaunch.com/the-essential-entrepreneur-seo-toolbox/

BY AJ KUMAR

As a small business owner using the web to reach customers, you’ve surely been implementing search engine optimization tactics to make sure your site turns up high in web searches. But just when you might feel like you’re starting to get the hang of this (organic search results) thing, it appears that search giant Google might start penalizing websites that are over-optimized.

At this year’s South by Southwest festival, Google spokesperson Matt Cutts hinted that such a penalty would weed out sites that focus too much on SEO and too little on providing a quality experience for their users.

So what factors might play a role in an over optimization penalty? Cutts outlined several signals that would qualify as too much SEO, such as “too many keywords on a page” and “exchange way too many links.”

The tricky part is determining what constitutes too many keywords or links. While the penalty has not yet been put in place, you can still take steps to make sure your business’s site doesn’t end up being labeled “overly optimized”:

Read the full article here http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223236

By Terry Howerton