Should You Submit Your Business Website to Directories?

When searching for directories to submit your business website to, it’s important to vet them carefully. Many directories are little more than link farms where SEO folks paste the same links and descriptions to dozens (or even hundreds) of sites. You don’t want that.

Instead, you should look for directories — like DirJournal.com — where editors craft unique descriptions of your site and where you can reach a targeted audience. For small business owners that means focusing on business-oriented directories. Also keep an eye on the type of content, in addition to directory listings, that the site publishes. You don’t want your site being advertised alongside low quality content. DirJournal.com has put years of effort into building a collection of high quality content, much of which can help business owners like you directly. As examples, here are a few articles I personally wrote for the site:

• How to Write a White Paper
• How to Make Money Blogging Without Relying on Ads
• How to Drive Last Minute Online Sales Before the Holidays

Win a Free Featured Directory Listing

If  you decide that the DirJournal.com directory is a good fit for your business website, why not try to win a free featured listing?  (There is normally a $249.95 review fee to have their editors thoroughly review your site for consideration for a featured permanent listing.) Here’s what you have to do:

• Visit the DirJournal.com homepage.
• Click the Google +1 link at the top of the site to share the Directory Journal with your G+ network.
• Leave a comment on this DirJournal.com post letting them know you shared the site. Make sure you use a valid email address when commenting, as the winner will be chosen at random from the email addresses associated with the comments (which only the site admins can see).

The deadline for entering the contest is noon EST on Monday, December 24, 2012. The winner will be announced on Thursday, December 27, 2012.

Good luck!

The post Win a Free Featured Listing at the DIRJournal Business Directory appeared first on BizAmmo.

What Readers Can Expect

Most of the changes that result from this blog content audit should not be visible to you as a reader. They’re back-end tasks such as improving meta information (for search engine indexing and rankings) which won’t display on the front-end of the site. However, some front-end changes will occur. For example:

• The design was updated. This already occurred, so you can check out those changes immediately. While I haven’t come across any problems as a direct result of the new theme changes here, I encourage you to let me know if something doesn’t work correctly so I can fix it immediately.
• Poor formatting in posts will be fixed. This site has moved between several publishing platforms and several designs over the years. As a result of some poor choices in the past, some content does not fit the current design of the site properly. For example, some old posts still have summaries at the top which, based on our new stylesheet, appear very large, and then have a huge gap of white space below them. They will all be corrected. Some posts also have different subheading and list styles than others. I intend to have that fixed as well.
• Some posts will be edited. All of our writing improves over time. As a result, I plan to edit some of our older posts — especially those that still bring in decent search engine traffic. That might mean something as simple as fixing broken links and spelling errors to overhauling or updating the content where appropriate.

My hope is that the changes to come won’t interfere with your reading experience here at BizAmmo.com, and that all of our upcoming adjustments will be for the better. Please feel free to leave a comment or contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.

The post The BizAmmo Blog Content Audit: What to Expect appeared first on BizAmmo.

Changing from their traditional ‘blue box logo’ that had been in use for over two decades to simple black text with a small, blue box hovering behind the ‘p’, its aim was to show that the company was keeping up with modern trends and could effectively move with the times and not simply be considered a brand that had its peak before the turn of the last millennium.

Within a matter of days of the logo going public, however, it was pulled and decided that the former logo would continue to be used across the brand.

Although Gap is a multi-million dollar company and a change of logo could have had a detrimental effect on sales, if you’re thinking that your small business wouldn’t suffer at all from a new logo and you’re considering scrapping your previous one in favour of a more up-to-date version, it’s strongly recommended that you first ask yourself the following three questions.

How integral is it to your company?

The very first question you need to ask is how important your logo is to your company, as the answer to this should have a distinct effect on whether or not you continue to consider revamping it.

If you believe that your logo is synonymous with your company and is something that people instantly associate with the organization, you need to think about the repercussions of what will in effect be a complete company rebrand.

If the opposite is true and you don’t think the logo is overly important to your organization, this shouldn’t mean that you go ahead and change the logo, but that you should consult others outside of the business, as your views might be a lot different to others.

It’s also worthwhile keeping in mind how and where your logo is used, especially if you’re a retailer – a lot of consumers purchase products so that they can have a bag to carry them in which has the company’s name and logo emblazoned on the side, with many also purchasing products from other companies for the exact opposite reason.  Change your logo and your risk alienating this section of your audience.

Why are you changing the logo?

If you feel like it’s a possibility to change your logo, it’s now important that you ask yourself why you want to change it.

Is it outdated?  Does it clash with a rival’s logo?  Is it devaluing your company?  Does it not provide a true representation of the organization?

Should it be one of the above, you generally have good grounds to want to change.  If it’s simply because you don’t like the existing one, however, you really need to stop and thinking about whether or not it’s a worthwhile procedure changing it.

How much is it going to cost you?

When oil giant BP rebranded their company with a change of logo in 2000, it reportedly cost $7 million just for the research and logo development – there was then tens of millions of dollars spent on the costs of changing every single company item that featured the old logo.

As a small business, a change of logo generally isn’t going to cost you a substantial amount of money, but it could be a lot more than you first expected.

For instance, aside from having to hire a designer to create various logo drafts before working with them to develop the final one, you have to remember that everything from your letterhead and stationery right through to your branded sales products and retail signs needs to be changed.  All in one go, too – no one wants to see a company two years down the line with half of their products using an old logo and half of them using the new one.

Changing your company’s logo could be the best move you ever make for your business and it could help you make that next step up the ladder in your industry.  However, it could be a change that has such a detrimental effect on your company that you’re forced to scale down and swallow the financial loss.

As long as you ask yourself the three above questions first, understand the implications and consult all of your customers – Marka Hansen, president of Gap Brand North America, stated that the reason for the new logo’s failure was that the company “missed the opportunity to engage with the online community” – you should be able to make the most informed decision possible about whether you should or should not introduce a new company logo.

The post How To Decide Whether Or Not You Should Introduce A New Company Logo appeared first on BizAmmo.