Master the Web

by Thom Harris

Now that you’ve bought the computers, ordered and installed the broadband, and had someone write a website for you, what do you do with the Web?

While your employees may have fun shopping at Amazon (www.amazon.com) or watching the fun at Youtube (www.youtube.com), this is not why you decided to upgrade your internet connection. That connection may cost your company $30 to $90 each month and it needs to earn that money back as much as your vehicles or your office do. So let’s get started.

There are a number of search engines out there that all do the job. Whether you Google (www.google.com), Ask (www.ask. com), Yahoo (www.yahoo.com), or Excite (www.excite.com) your way through the Web, you’ll find most of the information that you’re looking for. Each of these search engines has a different way of finding information, so it’s best if you use more than one of them. Yahoo and Excite tend to use tags in the code, while Google and Ask actually have humans searching the net for data.

If you’re over fifty, you might decide to get Cranky (www.cranky.com) which is optimized to find information that interests aging internet surfers. It is a service of Eons, Inc. (www.eons.com), and they are trying to become the media company for the over 50 crowd. If this is your market, then contact them at salesorders@eons.com to sponsor a link.

General business
While we’ll get back to government Websites later, there is one site that needs to be mentioned for general business. Business. gov (www.business.gov) tries to bring all of the resources that the government offers under one roof. Whether you’re in business; starting a business; or just thinking about starting a business, this is the one site that will help you locate resources that you might need.

While we’re looking at business, one of the most ignored departments in a small business is Human Resources. At Administaff’s site, HRTools (www.hrtools. com), you can get information on the policies and descriptions that will help your company run a little smoother. This is a paid site, but has some great information for free as well.

Balanced Scorecard (www.bscol.com) gives every company a method of scoring their business. While most management theories come and go, this method allows you to choose the measures of your business. It’s up to you whether you hit the numbers you set.

Looking for some legal information? Then look no further than Findlaw (www.findlaw.com) and Lexis One (www.lexisone.com). While both sites would love for you to purchase from them, they do have great sections on basic legal information for the layman. Not sure what a ‘torte’ is? You’ll find the answer at both of these sites. Just remember, find a good lawyer to take your case. You don’t want to represent yourself.

In every business, you’ll have to write something—someday. If you’re like most people, as am I, writing doesn’t come easy. There is an all-in-one site to help. At Reference (www.reference.com) you can find the reference material, dictionary and thesaurus needed to give your writing the flair it deserves. At the very least, your writing will be understood.

Marketing
Finding information on the internet is easy. Finding sites that work for you can be a little harder. Searching on Google for ‘marketing plan’ will get you 142,000,000 results. Now pick one site out of those 142,000,000 that will help you write a marketing plan. Little bit on the hard side, isn’t it? Better yet, let’s take a look at some of the sites that will help you market your business. A member of the virtual library, Know this (www. knowthis.com), is a complete reference site for marketing. Providing the basics of marketing, this site will help you understand the concepts of marketing and delivers content that will help you understand the marketing needs of your business.

Building the brand that you call your company can be hard for the entrepreneur. Another marketing site, Building Brands (www.buildingbrands.com) can help. Be prepared for their sales pitch (it is a .com site after all), but they do have good information on building your business by building the brand name associated with it. This is not just for national companies, but can help the small company as well.

Promoting your company needs to be one of your primary concerns. The problem with this is that money is not an unlimited resource in your business. Promotion World (www.promotionworld.com) will give you an understanding of real world and internet promotion. Again, this is a .com site, so they want to sell you something, but the free articles on promotion are worth the visit.

Speaking of promotion, you need to know where to find gifts for those employees and customers that take care of you. Some companies have their own ecommerce gift store (www.hersheygifts.com, www.mymms.com or www.successories.com); others sell through a group arrangement through a third party (www.e-corporategifts. com). Either way, let those people know that you appreciate them.

Finding a good salesperson can be hard for a small company. Knowing what to do with them is even harder. Another company site, Mentor Associates (www.saleslinks.com) has a group of articles under their free resources page that will help you find and train a good salesperson for your small business.

Don’t know much about advertising? Then Painted Cows (www.paintedcows. com) is the site for you. Giving a complete list of advertising associations, marketing companies, focused advertising, research, and other sites of interest, this site is considered one of the better ones on the net. Better, the site is a fun site to explore.

Want to find out what your customers are saying about you? You need to be aware of sites that allow customers to complain about you and your company. One of the better sites is My 3 Cents (www.my3cents.com). This site requires that the person wanting to complain open an account and give their personal information. They also provide the information to the company so that you can answer the complaint. Contact them at admin@my3cents.com to give them your email so that you can receive any complaints about your company.

One of the worst sites on the internet is Rip Off Report (www.ripoffreport. com). Anybody, for any reason, can complain about your business anonymously. If your company gets enough complaints, the site owner will contact your company and suggest a "Consumer Advocacy Program".

Government sites
You and your company pay enough taxes, so let’s put the government to work for you. One of the least visited sites in the government is the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov); this site is one of the better sites for business today. Offering information on history, culture, and most importantly, business, just type "business" in the search engine and find a wealth of information on business and business resources. (Note: one of the pages on the site http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/fedgov.html will give you links to all of the sites of the federal government.)

The next site may take some faith and a little courage, but going to the IRS (www.irs.gov) is not as bad as you think. This site gives you more information about your taxes than you will ever need. Apart from the information overload, the site will give you basic tax information, tax savings and optimizing your taxes. While no one likes an audit, the information on the site is worth visiting on a regular basis.

One of the best sources for small business is the Small Business Administration (www.sba.gov). This site gives information on starting a business, local resources for your business, and online training for your going business. This site has improved over the years, as has the services offered by the Administration. If you have any questions about your business, they have the answer, or can send you in the right direction.

The Department of Commerce (www.commerce.gov) is for the business that is looking to take the next step. While you may not be considering exporting or importing anything, make sure you keep this site in mind for government contracts, grants and the egov portal that allows your business to purchase statistics and usable information from more than 20 different government agencies.

While we’re looking at what the government can do for you, look at your state government as well. Every state has a site, either as a separate entity (www.ohio.gov, www. illinois.gov, etc.) or through the U.S. system of government naming (www.state.sd.us, etc.). These portals will get you what you need to help your business in that particular state.

Computers
When we look at the Internet, we need to look at the Granddaddy of the Internet sites. Cnet (www.cnet.com) provides more information than you could possibly use. From buyers’ guides to downloads (www. download.com) to reviews, this site runs the gamut of computers and the internet.

Cnet has a companion Website known as TechRepublic (www.techrepublic.com), which provides information and whitepapers for large and small businesses alike. If you want to know how to handle security on your computers, data privacy for your customers, or just general information, then TechRepublic has both a whitepaper and a newsletter to help.

Both Cnet and TechRepublic are owned by the Ziff Davis Publishing Group which owns a third site at www.Webbuyersguide. com. This site also has white papers and information on computers. What makes this site different from TechRepublic is their focus on the net.

The Internet is, after all, computer based. If you’re running your company well, then you have at least one computer doing your bookkeeping. If you’re like most small businesses, then that bookkeeping is being done with QuickBooks. Take a look at the QuickBooks Help and Support Center (www.quickbooks.com/helpcenter/Default. aspx). This site has information on your QuickBooks and helpful tips for you, your accountant and the person doing your books.

If you have a computer (and we know you do), then you need to know that the drivers on the computer are just software, and software needs to be updated. Take a look at the manufacturer’s site for your computer or at Drivers.com (www.drivers.com) for any updates to your drivers.

Speaking of updates, it’s always a good idea to keep Microsoft’s Website (www. microsoft.com) handy to update your Windows and your Microsoft Office. There are always updates and you can find a wealth of information, templates and clipart to help you run your business just a little better.

General information
If you haven’t already visited, there are two sites that keep you up to date on the news minute by minute. At Fox news (www. foxnews.com) and CNN (www.cnn.com), you can satisfy your news junkie and find late breaking news.

If you want to play games (just don’t let your employees see you), then check out Shockwave (www.shockwave.com), Games (www.games.com) and Slingo (www.slingo. com). These three sites have the most addictive games on the internet. Better yet, they’re free.

Regardless of what you do on the net, just remember to be careful. Not everything on the Internet is true or false, right or wrong; but it can help you and your business.