The Internet has made it so easy to listen to what our prospects have to say and develop goods and services based on their needs. Every small business owner needs to listen and ask people for feedback and suggestions. You never know what ideas you can come up with by knowing what your audience thinks about a specific topic. Creating online polls and surveys could not be any easier these days. There are plenty of services that let you create your own polls online and start collecting data. Here are 5 tools to get you started:

PollDaddy: PollDaddy needs no introduction. It’s one of the most versatile online poll solutions around. You can easily integrate your polls into your website with this service. PollDaddy can be used to survey your customers, employees, partners, and so on.

Flisti: an easy to use tool that lets you create polls without any sign up and share them with your Facebook and Twitter friends. Great for setting up quick polls. Continue reading 5 Awesome Online Poll Tools For Business

Those of you who own an online business have probably gotten positive or negative e-mails about your service from your visitors from time to time. While some visitors are passionate enough to write to webmasters and explain their concerns, not everyone is going to take time to do that. That’s why every website owner should put the effort to add a feedback box to his/her website. Asking for your visitors’ feedback is the best way to find out about your business’ strengths and weaknesses and take your business to the next level.

There are plenty of ways one can add a feedback box to a website. Gathering data is only a part of the process. Working with a service that lets you analyze your data is even better. The good new is you don’t have to a programming guru to add such functionality to your website. These 5 feedback tools let you do that fast:

Kampyle: a feedback analytics package that lets you add a compact feedback button to your website and start gathering some good data from your visitors. The service lets you respond to customers’ concerns, which is nice.

CrowdSound: a social feedback tool that is very attractive and very easy to install. Gives you the chance to get some instant feedback from your visitors.

Monyta: it’s a website friendly tab that sits on the top of your website at all times and gives your visitors the call to action they need to take the next step and give you their feedback. Continue reading 5 Tools to Gather Feedback From Your Visitors

Many small businesses assume that starting an online store requires a lot of funds and resources. If you plan to run an Amazon.com size store, then you will need to have a strong team and lots of resources. But how many small businesses will want to run such a store? Starting a decent-size online shop couldn’t be any easier these days. There are plenty of tools and services that let you get the job done in an affordable fashion. In fact, here are 5 ways to start your own online shop without breaking the bank:

highwire: a powerful e-commerce platform that provides you with the tools to manage your orders and customers and manage all aspects of your business easily. Gives you control over HTML and CSS too.

Shopify: designed to help you go online with your store as quickly as possible. It has plenty of themes for you to choose from to customize your online shop. It offers SSL, custom domains, and business tools (e.g. discounts, promotional tools, …).

WordPress E-commerce themes: WordPress is a great platform to start an e-commerce website with. It has a ton of plugins that can enhance your store too. Continue reading 5 Ways To Start an Online Shop Fast

Many social media beginners use Twitter, Facebook, and other top sites to only share information with their prospects and customers. Businesses that are doing just that are missing the boat completely. While businesses should take time to interact with their customers, they should also listen to what others have to say about their brand. Knowing what people are complaining about or would like to see your business offer can help you improve your product and take your business to the next level.

There are plenty of social media listening tools around. Here are 5 great tools to get you started:

Addict-o-matic: gives you a quick way to search through blogs and the social media sites to find what you are looking for. It covers Twitter, Bing, YouTube, and …

Trackle: lets you keep an eye out on your competitors and your own brand. Sends you e-mail as you get mentions around the web.

Continue reading 5 Handy Social Media Listening Tools for Business

Owning a content portal is not a bad way to start an online business, especially if you are into the publishing business. If you are just starting, getting videos, images, audio, and animation files to make your portal more dynamic could be a bit challenging. That’s why royalty-free content are so popular. If you want to enhance your podcast, add animation to your portal, or want to mix videos, royalty free websites can help. It does help that you won’t have to pay a fortune to get your hands on some of these items.

These 5 exciting websites can help you find the royalty free music, video, and audio files that fit your business needs:

Graphic River: as the name suggests, Graphic River is a marketplace for stock graphics. Includes textures, vectors, icons, and templates.

Active Den: has some killer Flash content for you to take advantage of on your website. Includes music players, galleries, games, and much more.

Stock Exchange: has plenty of free and royalty free images for you to choose from. A great place for bloggers and publishers to look for high quality images. Continue reading 5 Ways to Find Royalty-Free Content For Your Portal