Search Engine Optimization. One of the most underrated and overrated tactics used by webmasters. Before I address why SEO is underrated for businesses, let me tell you why SEO is overrated. A lot of small businesses fall too much in love with their SEO practices and forget about other marketing channels to get the word out about their business. SEO is very attractive as it is considered to generate free leads for your business. But search engine optimization takes time and there are no guarantees. There is simply no way to guarantee #1 ranking on Google and Bing, and anyone who does guarantee it is being deceptive.

SEO underrated among many companies across many industries. I have seen many large companies that simply don’t get it when it comes to SEO. Many think of SEO as a magic trick that can open the traffic floodgates. Some small businesses don’t even bother with SEO, thinking that it’s too hard and simply not beneficial. In reality, none of these approaches are true. SEO can be a powerful channel for your small business, but you shouldn’t over-rely on it and expect miracles. At the end of the day, how much success you get from your SEO efforts depends on your landing page and your product offerings.

Getting started with SEO is not as difficult as most people think. It does take a bit of work, and at some point you may be better off outsourcing your efforts. At the same time, there are a lot of things you can do by yourself. If you are stuck and have no idea where to start, here are a few areas you should focus on:

• Details: knowing how search engines work goes a long way towards helping you figure out strategies and tactics that can give you the best bang for your buck. You don’t want to implement tactics without knowing what the effects could be.
• Keywords: your keywords are very important in determining what kind of traffic you get to your website. Not all keywords are created equal, so make sure you do your homework here.
• Content: having the right kind of content on your website goes along way towards determining your success. Content will always be king, so don’t cut corners here.
• On page factor: on page factors are in general not as important as they used to be, but you can still get some value out of making your your META tags, alt tags, and so on are done right.
• Links: building links to your pages is very important. You want to get links from blogs, forums, and authority sites (very important). Education, government, and other top sites can help you climb the rankings fast.
• Social Media: social media optimization should be a big part of your plans. You should take time to create a Facebook and Twitter account and keep driving traffic to your website.
• Web 2.0: using sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed goes a long way towards bringing you more traffic. But don’t forget to add podcasts, video-casts, and so on to your web pages to draw more people in and spread the word around your business.

This is just a simple overview of what you need to do to climb the rankings and get more traffic to your website. There are tons of books that you should read to take your SEO game to the next level. Your focus should really not be on search engines but rather providing value to your users. Content and value are still king, so don’t let your eyes off the ball.

Starting an online business is one of the best ways to get on the road to financial freedom. A lot of people dream about having the ability to work for themselves. But before you can even think about getting your business off the ground, you need to pay extra attention to the web host you are planning to choose as your business partner. Not many businesses afford to have their own servers, so if you are just getting started with your online business, there is no shame in partnering with a third-party service provider. But what you don’t want to do is jump in and choose the first web host that you find online.

Choosing a web host for your business is a big deal. It’s not an issue that you can take chances with. In the start, you may not get too much traffic, and your site could do fine even if it went down from time to time. But once you start getting a real following, your readers are going to expect your site to be up at all times (or as much as possible). It would look poorly on your brand and your business as a whole if your site was down frequently. Unfortunately, choosing a good web host is not that easy. There are many companies that promise you 99.9% uptime and all these great features, but once you put some load on their servers, they start to fail on you. You may not catch the issue when your site is young. But when you do, it’s going to be the wrong time. So you do want to pay extra attention when choosing a web host for your business to protect yourself and your business against service outages.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind if you are looking for the best business web hosting:

• Bandwidth: if you have grand plans for your site, you want to make sure you get enough bandwidth with your hosting package to handle all your traffic. You don’t want your site to be down when thousands of people rush to check it out.
• Storage: if you are going to have a lot of images, files, videos, and so on, you want to make sure you have a place to store them. So don’t settle for packages that don’t come with a reasonable level of storage capacity.
• Resources: there are a lot of web hosting companies that offer unlimited shared web hosting. That’s really not the way it works. If your site is very popular, you are going to get a lot of hits and put extra pressures on your host’s servers. You can be sure that your web host won’t do you any favors, and your site will go down. That’s why private web hosting services are far better solutions for small businesses.
• Databases: if you intend to start a blog network or a comprehensive product portal, you may need more than a few databases. You should look out for limits that are put on your account as far as your databases are concerned.
• Reputation: the most important factor of them all. Don’t ever sign up for a web hosting service without Googling the service first to find out about the company and its reputation. There are a lot of companies that offer too good to be true offers. And they are usually that. Make sure you know the facts before giving your money to a company that doesn’t take care of its customers.

There are many other factors that you need to consider before picking a web host for your business. Price, scripts, and e-mail features are all important. But in my book, you want to sign up for a web host that guarantees your site being up and ready to be served to your readers. There is nothing more frustrating than buying ads, driving traffic to a website, and have your site go down in the process. Choosing a reliable business is not only helps you grow your business but it also helps you save time and money. Choosing the right business partner can be the difference between succeeding and failing in your business. It never hurts to take time to choose the right one whether it’s a web host or an e-mail service provider.

The U.S. economy may still be in recession, but the Internet industry is still growing, and there are still plenty of ways to make money online with your own business, especially if you are a bit technical. Think about it. Twitter and iPhone are two of the hottest topics that are being talked about on TV, radio, and on the Internet. Building a business around these services can certainly pay for the foreseeable future. Since these technologies are not fully mature yet, there are plenty of opportunities to develop innovative solutions for these services and start build your web business.

Twitter API and iPhone SDK provide every entrepreneur with a great opportunity to develop innovative applications and start building up your web business. Unlike what most people assume, getting a handle of these technologies is not that difficult. As long as you have some technical knowledge, you can get started with your own Facebook or Twitter app fast. Besides, you can always outsource the process.

If you are technical enough to tackle Twitter API or iPhone SDK, here are 5 great books you should read to help you get started with your own app:

Twitter API – Up and Running: the best Twitter API book hands down. It teaches you how to develop innovative solutions for Twitter and build a Twitter business fast. If you know PHP, you are going to enjoy reading this book, and by the time you are done, who knows what you can come up with.

Facebook Cookbook: Twitter may be very popular these days, but so is Facebook. Many small businesses have taken their business to the next level by developing cool Facebook apps. A great way to brainstorm, develop products, sell yours or other people’s products.

Beginning iPhone Development: if you are completely new to iPhone SDK, you should read this book. It gets you started with everything you need to know to develop a basic iPhone app.

iPhone Games Projects: I can’t tell you how many people have made a lot of money by developing killer games on iPhone. You can make money from ads or just charge for your iPhone app. If you are app makes it to the top seller list, the sky’s the limit for your business. Many developers have quit their day jobs and gotten started with their own app company. You can always hire a few programmers and do the same.

Pro Web 2.0 Mashups: a killer book on Web 2.0 mashups. Teaches you what you need to know to work with various APIs and start building your innovative apps fast. Shows you how to create different types of mashup, such as search, calendars, RSS/Atom feeds, and social bookmarking.
You don’t necessarily have to be on the cutting edge to make money online, but iPhone, Twitter, and Facebook are great technologies to be involved with. These technologies have a large following, and as long as you address a unique need, there is no reason you can’t build a startup around these technologies. The times may be tough but innovative business models survive and thrive under most difficult conditions.

As someone who has been involved in the online marketing business for years, I hear from people who have started their iPhone development business from time to time and try to help them out get more traffic and sales. Developing a killer iPhone application may sound difficult, but promoting it could be even more troublesome for iPhone developers. A lot of these folks are not online marketing experts, so they find it difficult to figure out where to spend their effort on. After all, you only have 24 hours a day and limited resources when you start your venture, so you want to make sure you get the most out of each and every minute everyday. But there are a certain things every application developer can do to promote their apps more effectively and get free leads.

Online marketing may look complicated on the surface, but there are a lot of tactics that everyone can adopt to generate leads. Sure, there are more complicated strategies that are better left to professionals but creating a Twitter account, a YouTube video, or a Facebook fan page is not that difficult to do. If you are an application developer, here are 10 tactics you should adopt to push your app and generate more sales:

• Video Review: creating a video review for your app can help others find out whether your app is worth trying. It’s easy to tell people what your app is capable of. But it’d be all more effective if you show people what your app can do in a video. You can even give applications away in return for video reviews. You should at least try to create a YouTube account and post a couple of videos from your app to show what your app can do. There are many other video sites that you can be on, so make sure you take advantage of what’s out there.
• Lite Version: one of the best ways to show people what your app can do is by giving others the opportunity to test your app for themselves. That’s why it’s a great strategy to create a lite version of your app and give it away for free and encourage your lite users to make the move and buy the premium version.
• Facebook Fan Page: one of the best ways to get connected with your fans and build a real community around your application. Don’t forget to register a catchy name for your Facebook page when it’s eligible.
• Twitter: if you have an iPhone application that you are selling online, and you are not on Twitter, you are missing the boat. Twitter is a great community to find people who are interested in all kinds of products. Use Twitter search or these twitter tools to figure out who may be looking for your app.
• FriendFeed: may not be as popular as Facebook and Twitter nowadays, but it certainly has a lot of potential and a bright future. You should take time to sign up for an account, connect with folks, join rooms, and be involved.
• Ning: Ning is a cool web service that lets you create your own social community. If you have a niche app, why not create a social community around your niche and push your app that way. Ning doesn’t cost any money (unless you go with premium features) so it’s worth a try.
• LinkedIn: now this is a bit more tricky to pull off, but you can always try to reach out to folks in your niche or industry on LinkedIn and either push your app or ask them to spread the word around. You do want look useful on LinkedIn. So don’t hesitate to post polls, ask questions, answer questions, and work on your profile.
• Giveaways: once you have your social media accounts ready, you should try to make things interesting by giving away copies of your app to your followers and Facebook friends. Freebies are a great way to go viral, and people who win these competitions can help you spread the word around and gain more leads.
• Bloggers: reaching out to top bloggers is an amazing way to drive lots of traffic to your app and make a killing on iTunes. If you happen to get featured on Engadget or any other top blog, you are going to get more traffic that you can handle. Don’t be afraid to reach top bloggers and ask for their reviews.
• Press Releases: press releases can drive you lots of traffic if you play your cards right. Ask any search engine optimization professional, and he/she will tell you how important press releases are to their overall strategy in optimizing a site for search engines. Just choose keywords that can help you make sales and include them in your press release. It’s easier said than done, but there are plenty of sites that can show you how to go about writing a killer press release.

There you have it. You don’t have to be a genius to pull the above tactics off. These tactics, if implemented correctly, can get you a lot of traffic and sales. The first days of any venture can be difficult but once you tough them out and gain momentum, who knows where your business can take you.

Whether you have been watching TV a lot lately or been following the news, you have probably heard of green economy, green tech, and Eco-entrepreneurship. Whether you like it or not, green technologies are coming, and we are going to have a greener future. That’s a very exciting news for those of us who know how to take advantage of opportunities in this new industry. There are plenty of ways to start a green business, help clean up our Earth, and make a living in the process. And since we are in early days, there are a lot of opportunities to jump on and get an early edge in this industry. You just have to agile.

If you are new to the whole green “thing” and interested in starting your own green business, there are plenty of good books to get you started. You do want to know as much as possible about this industry to develop and implement your idea in a more effective fashion. But fear not as there are plenty of books that can help you do just that (aside from blogs and forums). Here are 8 good ones you should read:

Start Your Own Green Business: this is one of my favorite book. It’s concise and to the point. It’s not written to make you a master in this industry but is a great crash course. It does help you graduate to more comprehensive books more easily.

Harvard Business Review on Green Business Strategy: needs no introduction. It’s the one green book everyone should read before jumping into this industry.

75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make A Difference: this is one of the best books to read if you are looking to develop a unique idea for this industry. You may not be interested in any of these ideas, but you can easily come up with your own after reviewing some of these.

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