Free WordPress and Content Generation Webinar

Free WordPress and Content Generation Webinar

Mar 19, 2010 by Aaron Rubman

On Wednesday, March 31, I will be leading a 40-minute webinar on blogging.

Take a Tour of WordPress

For those of you who have not taken the leap into the world of blogging, we will spend the first 20-minutes touring the back-end of the world’s most popular blogging solution.  As part of this process you will see what goes into editing, scheduling, and publishing a blog entry as we ready the actual April 1 post for MB/I.

Get Some Tips on Content Creation

Scared of the time & brain-power commitment a successful blog requires? For the second half of the call, I will highlight …

How to Keep Your Blog Alive

How to Keep Your Blog Alive

Mar 15, 2010 by Aaron Rubman

It can be difficult to get a new blog off the ground.  A recent IBM report announced that 80% of the blogs they host never made it past the 5th post.  Other blogs, especially business blogs, often start with a flurry of activity only to peter off after a month or two.

If you want to keep your online presence from becoming one of these social media casualties, you need plan out how you will keep your blog alive.

Build Blogging into Your Calendar

When it comes to scheduling, you need to treat your blog just like you would any other formal project.  …

Why Bother With A Web Site, part 2

Why Bother With A Web Site, part 2

Feb 17, 2010 by Lindsay Gower

Last week, I introduced a business man – let’s call him Pierre – and the two reasons he gave me for not having a web site:

  • Web sites cost too much.
  • He gets his business by word of mouth.
  • I responded to his mistake #1 last week.  Here are my thoughts about Reason #2.

    OK: Pierre gets business from word-of-mouth advertising. So he has a Marketing Plan and it’s called Referrals. Great! Referrals are fantastic, and are the …

    Future of the Mobile Web Seen in the Land of the Rising Sun

    Future of the Mobile Web Seen in the Land of the Rising Sun

    Jan 20, 2010 by Aaron Rubman

    Until Apple’s release of the iPhone and accompanying App Store, Japan was more or less the undisputed leader in mobile technology and innovation.  Roughly 90% of the population owns some form of mobile phone.  Their mobile networks are faster and cover a greater portion of the country.

    What’s more interesting, 8 years ago the breakdown of revenue from Japan’s mobile internet looked remarkably similar to the current breakdown of revenues for the rest of the world.  These are just a small number of the many observations to appear in Morgan Stanley’s 424-page Mobile Internet Report.

    Japan’s market anticipated the popularity of recreational …

    Designing for Action

    Designing for Action

    Dec 9, 2009 by Aaron Rubman

    Websites are tools, and the tools that endure are the tools that serve a purpose.  Shovels are good at making holes, cars are good at moving people from one place to another.  If you want people to use your website, it must serve a purpose.  However, it is not sufficient for the site to serve a purpose for you, it must serve a purpose for whomever you want to use it.

    What Purpose Should Your Website Serve?
    And Whom Does it Serve?

    There are any number of purposes a website might serve, but let’s take a look at some of the more common …

    Mushnik’s Marketing Lessons

    Mushnik’s Marketing Lessons

    Oct 26, 2009 by Aaron Rubman

    Excuse me.  I couldn’t help noticing that strange and interesting plant.

    • Little Shop of Horrors

    Unfortunately, we do not all work at Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists.

    Putting a strange and interesting plant in your window (or on your website) will not drive web traffic all on its own.

    If nobody passes your window, then no one can see what’s there, nor can they tell their friends and acquaintances.

    What you need is an integrated strategy that both uses your website as an asset and uses your other assets to draw attention to your website.  Here are some things to consider before working on your strategy:

    Do You Have a Social Media Plan?

    Do You Have a Social Media Plan?

    Oct 20, 2009 by Marissa Berger

    LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube… once only visited for personal use, these sites are now being used for business purposes. We all hear about them and see their icons everywhere. And, we feel out of touch or like we are dropping the ball if we don’t have profiles on all of them.

    It is true that social media sites help business. But how? Most of the case studies we read about are about big business and their bigger than life social media campaigns. How can small business benefit?

    The truth is—at least our opinion of it—that there are no step-by-step rules to follow …

    Building Your Marketing Playbook

    Building Your Marketing Playbook

    Oct 19, 2009 by kellyv

    Most small businesses know their business. They also excel at explaining how their business operates and probably have a supporting brochure that tells that story. This knowledge creates operational excellence. But, growth potential is found in identifying why customers buy, who is buying from the company, and how to connect with them; this is a reoccurring question for even the most passionate business owners. A marketing strategy is a foundation built on the answers to these questions, a strategy for success. Building a strategy can be simplified if it is broken into small components.

    Moving past operational deliverables, a …

    5 Ways to Find Your Online Audience

    5 Ways to Find Your Online Audience

    Oct 12, 2009 by Aaron Rubman

    An important thing to remember when you go looking for your online market is that nobody can tell you more about your audence than your audience itself. With that in mind, here are five ways to …

    Help Stop Death by PowerPoint

    Help Stop Death by PowerPoint

    Aug 18, 2009 by Scott Stiefvater

    You’ve been there… eyelids growing heavy, mind wandering, sitting through another boring business presentation. And what happens when it’s your turn to speak? Chances are you are committing some of the same presentations sins as everyone else. One of the greatest of these sins is the misuse of presentation software like PowerPoint.

    Slides laden with bulleted text are not ingredients for a powerful presentation. But many of us don’t know any better. The templates provided by the software seem to beg for bullets and text and slide titles and logos and clipart. What were meant as tools to make …

    Welcome to The Gold Mine

    The Gold Mine is a blog developed by MB/I to assist site owners with the process of developing and maintaining a website. MB/I is a full-service web development company building websites since 2000.