Year: 2013

Doing Business Online? This affects you.

http://www.ebayinternetsalestax.com/ist/step1_b.asp

Less than 10 Million in sales should be exempt.

Join the cause and let congress know!

I subscribe toi Inc. Magazine both online and off and this article is really something all people who “work” to read.
not just the boss, and not the employees, everyone can learn from this piece 

Source: http://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/10-things-really-amazing-employees-do.html
By Kevin Daum 

1. Enthusiastically Learn All Aspects of Business

They understand they’re part of something bigger and more worthwhile than just their job. They look to learn other areas of the business and be fluent in finance andmanagement so they’ll positively impact multiple areas of the company.

What you can do: Invest in material and seminars on business basics like accounting, marketing, and management so all employees have easy access to learn and grow.

2. Steward the Company

They treat the company as if it were theirs. They look to make prudent decisions about expenses and opportunities with the long-term future of the company in mind. They easily assess risk vs. reward, selflessly when making decisions.

What you can do: . The more you share your financials and philosophy, the easier it is for employees to make the right decisions.

3. Generate Viable Opportunities

You don’t have to be in sales or marketing to help a company grow. from all divisions see company growth as a collective effort and constantly keep their eyes open for ways to more than pay for themselves.

What you can do: Make sure all your employees understand your value proposition and can easily identify opportunities. Then reward them openly for their efforts.

4. Resolve Issues Before They Are Issues

My favorite days running companies are when I noticein procedure when I was totally unaware of the need for change. Amazing employees are always looking to improve systems proactively, and they do.

What you can do: Communicate a clear written vision of where the company is going and encourage initiative so people feel safe and empowered to make change.

5. Tell It Like It Is

Amazing employees understand that hiding bad news helps no one. They find kind ways to bring uncomfortable information to the surface, but they DO bring it to the surface. Theybefore major damage is done.

What you can do: Foster an open communication environment where people are not only given permission to tell the truth, but also absolutely required.

6. Demonstrate High Standards, With Low Maintenance

I always feel relaxed when I can trust an employee to perform a task to the same high standards I would expect from myself. Not all can do this without constant attention or difficulty. Amazing employees quietly drive their own high standards.

What you can do: Set the example and the tone for high performance with minimal drama. Publicly reward those who can execute in the same manner.

7. Grow Themselves, and Others

They not only drive their own career but they inspire others to do the same. These employees lead by example in how to advance without creating animosity or resentment. They see and , and also bring others along.

What you can do: Encourage personal development and peer growth through dedicated group time and learning for career advancement.

8. Research, Apply, and Refine

No employer expects people to know everything. In this fast changing world, I choose employeesover those who know. The best employee proactively explores options, takes action and then improves without direction from the top.

What you can do: Invest time in exploration and. Encourage people to explore deep visionary projects with time and reward for the findings.

9. Stimulate Happiness

Amazing employees aren’t always sunshine and roses. They do know how to keep it real. But they understand the dynamics of people, stress, and the blend of work, life and friendship. They are self-aware and able to direct their own path that brings out their best with family, friends and career. They exude positive energy even in stressful times and share it around,.

What you can do: Create an environment where people can openly express themselves. Encourage them to work hard in fulfilling ways and achieve their dreams.

10. Facilitate Amazing Bosses

Amazing employees make me. They self-confidently get their value and help me get mine. They make me want to be worthy of working with somebody of such high caliber, without ever saying it directly of course.

What you can do: Make effort to genuinely show appreciation for any of the behaviors above so people feel their value and will grow to full potential. Then they will do the same for you.

I was out at a networking meeting last week and someone mentioned to me that WHERE you host your website has a direct affect on a website’s Search Engined Ranking.(Or one factor in SEO/search engine optimization.)

At first I was thinking, sure that makes sense, but as the conversation went further the details just didn’t seem right. There was talk of moving from California to Settle and seeing dramatic effects in rankings just because of where the data is being served up from….hmmm

Below is Oregon Publishing’s view on what sever location affects.

1. Location Finding the right server location should be the first SEO (Search Engine Optimization) task that you do,
   Yes, but think country based, not state or county.
2. Domain extension.
   Knowing where your website is hosted combined with your domain name suffix/extension (.com, .co.uk, com.au etc.,) will determine which geographical version of Google will give you the best results. If you didn’t know Google has county specific website like google.com.au or google.co.uk. *Important* If you use a generic name suffix such as .com, .org or any domain that is not country specific, Google and the other search engines will determine the location of your website’s business using other on site factors such as telephone and address.
3. Geo-Targeted.
   If your business is based in the UK and your host is located in the US, your business will be affected. Most of your searchers will actually be using Google.co.uk instead of Google.com so you should do your best to target them.
4. Load speed of your website.
   A US based server hosting visitors from another country will take longer to load then it would hosting to a user own country. That makes sense, the data has to travel across the world’s datacenters to get develiered.

The quote below is from Google Webmaster Central Post from 2010 (it should be noted over time Google has further decreased relying on server location)

Server location (through the IP address of the server) is frequently near your users. However, some websites use distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are hosted in a country with better webserver infrastructure, so we try not to rely on the server location alone.

Source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.es/2010/03/working-with-multi-regional-websites.html What matters MORE in SEO 

• Get Inbound local links
• Use the correct TLD (country code: in USA – .com, UK – .co.uk, AU – .com.au etc.)
• Use Google Webmaster Tools to verify your Locale (if you don’t own the TLD)
• Do local keyword research and target the best results
• Don’t interlink too heavily
• Host at an IP inside the country you’re targeting
• Website architecture (easily crawled by the right bots and spiders)
• Social media Factors Tweets, Likes, Pins, G+, etc.
• A pages title tag is considered one of most important factor (not just for bots, but what STICKS OUT To Humans as they scan the search results)
• Keywords in the domain name
• Remove canonicalization, or simple don’t split your page rank between www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com (pick one and redirect the other to it)

Your Questions and comments about server location and SEO welcomed! 

I was just in a business lunch and we were dicussing some of the social media sites out there that are of use to business. Sure we can say they all have use, but what ones are people really using in MASS?

Well we know the Big 4, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, G+ …. but what about Yelp?

It is easy enough to connect and create an account to Yelp.com from Facebook or you can just fill out the sign-up form and your in. The FB connect thing is very helpful for those too lazy to create yet another account.

Once you are on Yelp, you are not alone. You will quickly asked to find and connect with friends on this social network. People don;t think of Yelp as Social Media, but when haven’t reviews and feedback not been a social outcry? With 100,000,000 people on Yelp you will find some people you know and you will be connecting and sharing with them…sounds socialistic to me.

Here is the Article:

Ever since Facebook launched the beta version of Graph Search, there has been some speculation around the ’Net that the social network’s new feature could end up being a Yelp and/or Foursquare killer.

 If that is the case, Graph Search will have some big shoes to fill, because Yelp has announced that it received more than 100 million unique visitors in January 2013 (not including the 9.4 million users who used the mobile app during the same timeframe). While 100 million is still far from Facebook’s membership numbers, it does prove that Yelp has a very dedicated user base. Moreover, the engagement that came from these visitors was equally impressive.

Source