Google has a feature that will let you list your local business on Google. it’s an easy, step through process that will list your site with a Google Map reference.

You should look into grabbing your listing at Google before it gets hijacked. Here is an article that explains the process of hijacking your Google listing.

Here is the link to the page where you can walk through Google’s process for listing your business.

Let me know how that works for you by commenting below.

Several months ago I was introduced to Ad Surf Daily (ASD). You sign up, paying a monthly fee of course (they call it an "ad investment"), and simply click on links to "earn" your advertising investment back, and….of course, more $$$$$.

Now, being online for as long as I have been, I knew this was a scam right away. Traffic Swarm does the same thing, for FREE.

It seems the Florida Attorney General and the US Attorney’s office From the District of Columbia have served search warrants on ASD, asserting that they are a "Ponzi scheme … disguised as an advertising company."

California Attorney General, Edmund G. Brown announced on August 5th that the state is filing a lawsuit against Your Travel Biz.com for operating as a "gigantic pyramid scheme" that recruited tens of thousands of members with deceptive claims they could earn huge sums of money through it’s online travel agencies.

Today I received yet another call about an internet "get rich quick" scheme where you have to pay to be an affiliate. Be careful these days. There are those who will try to take advantage of you because they are counting on you not being very internet savvy. In internet marketing, rarely do you pay to be an affiliate.

Here’s a great tip on researching these new offerings….Google the multi-level marketing company name and add "scam", or "sucks" afterwards, so your search term would be….."MLM name" + scam.  Read up about who is involved and what others have to say about the company before investing your hard earned money. I did and discovered that there is a long, questionable history with the people at the top of this "opportunity."

I was told this new product would drive traffic to my website.  Upon further investigation, that claim couldn’t be further from the truth. As much as I like the person trying to sell me this new service, I’m not gullible when it comes to the internet and I could hear this person being coached in the background. Again, be careful. Do your due diligence in checking these firms out and, ask the person trying to convince you that this is the next best "money maker" how many MLM firms they’ve touted in the past 5 years. If it’s more than one, why?

There are MLM firms that offer great products and they sell with high integrity. I’m just urging you to check them out before giving your bucks to them.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

I love publishing. I published a small business newspaper in the early 90s’, The Business Resource. I was crushed when it became clear I couldn’t go on with it any longer. That’s when, by a fluke, I ended up at McGraw-Hill in their New Media Division.

When they closed our offices in March 2003, I wondered what I would do next. Little did I know, I’d end up on the Internet. I did know, I wanted a job/business where I could work from my laptop anywhere!

Magic In Words was born out of that desire. I want to share with you, what’s possible on the Internet for your business too.

As a programmer it’s a lot easier for me to venture into cyberspace. I’ve been there since Yahoo was a strange and foreign word! Trust me when I say, as a small business owner you need to take a look at what you can do to market your business online.

Is The Internet A Puzzle To You?

It can be confusing. What’s a url? What’s an autoresponder? How do I build a list? What’s a list?

We all have to start somewhere. On July 30th, join me at Simply Ambrosia for some great networking and a dinner seminar on taking your business online.

In this two hour dinner seminar you’ll:

• Find out what you need to do to get started
• Discover how to market your business through e-mail
• Learn how to easily get visitors names for your contact database
• Start creating your first information product and find out why you want one
• Learn the secrets to online networking and what communities would work for you
• And, of course, the dinner and quality networking with other attendees will be outstanding!!!!

Register Today

One step towards taking your business more into cyberspace is the ability to communicate over the web. I’m a Skype user, which allows me to IM my clients and associates, as well as make Skype to Skype calls. Skype also has what they call, extras. Extras extend the functionality of the software. One extra, Mikogo, which allows you to share your desktop with others. I put it to the test last night and will really thrash it tonight. So far, I’m impressed!

I had a total of four users join the meeting. We were able to easily watch the desktop being shared. We used a PowerPoint presentation and the lapse between clicking the slides and them visually changing was 3 seconds. One of the features I particularly liked was the ability for me, through a mouse click, to point to a part of the page that was being discussed. It’s hard to sit and watch someone else’s cursor on your screen, it’s nice to be able to interact to a degree with your cursor. It’s the ability to say, look at this!

Did I mention, it’s free? All you do is go to Mikogo, sign up for an account and download the Mikogo.exe software. You’ll also want to download the connect.exe found by tapping the "Join Meeting" in the header.

It’s an easy application to use and it will support 10 people in the meeting at one time.

As a blog coach, I find the ability to share my desktop to be essential, especially if I’m training my client on a program or task. If you have any need to share your desktop, and are a Skype user, this is one extra you don’t want to be without.

If you try it, or are working with Mikogo, let me know what you think by commenting.

I’ll be spending the next three days at the Business and Learning Expo.  This is an opportunity for you to discover more about other small business owners and how they are taking their businesses global through the Internet.

I’ve been participating in online expos for several years now and love meeting solopreneurs from all over, not only the country, but the world.

I’ll be speaking at the Business and Learning Expo on Wednesday, June 4th at 3pm Pacific Time / 6pm Eastern Time on Creating Digital Products For Service Providers.

Attendance is free and, if you’re thinking about going global this event will broaden your view about what’s possible for your business using the Internet. Join me for an eye-opening experience!

Cyberspace Holds a World of Productivity Freebies for Businesses

Online Marketer Helps Entrepreneurs Tap Into Wealth of Web Tools

By LIZ WIEDEMANN
San Diego Business Journal Staff

Online resources offer small business owners access to “the free stuff,” according to Debra Simpson, and everybody likes free stuff, she says.

Simpson is owner of Magic In Words, a Carlsbad-based Internet marketing business designed to help entrepreneurs increase traffic to their Web sites.

“I spend a lot of time with my clients teaching them online social networking and how to incorporate those Internet tools into their businesses,” said Simpson, who also produces North San Diego Business@Large, a blog dedicated to North San Diego County business news.

“Most people just need to be shown what the tools are and how to use them, and I think I fit that need,” she said.

In regular podcast interviews with local business professionals and as a guest speaker throughout Southern California, Simpson said she teaches low-cost and no-cost forms of marketing online, while creating passive income via sale of information products.

Read the entire article……

Learn To Become An Amazon Associate

Monday, May 12, 2008
3pm Pacific Time / 6pm Eastern Time

• Looking for a passive stream of income?
• Looking for products to sell?
• Want to make your site work for you?

This is your chance to LEARN how to become an Amazon Associate. To LEARN how to create product links, widgets and online stores. Debra Simpson will teach you how to add product to your website, creating a passive stream of income. Why pay someone like Debra to do the work for you, when you can do it yourself, for a fraction of the cost?

This 90 minute long, hands-on webinar will take you through signing up, creating your product information and grabbing the code for your blog or website.

Sign Up Today, Only $25.00

What are you waiting for? Come and join us from the comfort of your home office, with a beverage of your choice!

On Tuesday, April 15th Microsoft held "Vision to Venture", an event bringing together women from all over San Diego County to share ideas about starting and growing your small business.

Microsoft introduced their Office Live Small Business service for budding entrepreneurs, or solopreneurs as I like to refer to us! There were four excellent speakers. The first speaker was Susan Wilson Solovic, SBTV.com, who spoke about building a million dollar business. She’s the author of "The Girls’ Guide To Building A Million Dollar Business." What an energetic woman and an inspiration to all.

Additionally, she moderated a panel of three entrepreneurs who shared their experiences while answering questions from the audience. The panel was made up of: Lisa Baker, Lisa Confetti; Holli Door, Hollister Construction Company; and Ramona Russell, Uptown Liz.

This is the interview I did with Susan about the conference and SBTV.com

The second speaker, Rich Sloan of Startupnation.com, spoke about the seven overlooked secrets to starting up a business. He’s incredibly knowledgeable about the small business community and the co-author of "StartupNation: America’s Leading Entrepreneurial Experts Reveal the Secrets to Building a Blockbuster Business." He was gracious enough to sit down with me for a few minutes to share information about Startupnation and being a solopreneur.

Karen Dayan, Microsoft’s Digital Media Expert, spoke about taking your business and promoting it online in an easy and affordable way using Microsoft’s Office Live Small Business service. She also served as the Master of Ceremony during the day.

Microsoft is also offering an "on demand webcast" of the Vision to Venture event and it will be available later in May. Visit the Vision to Venture page to sign up for an e-mail alert as to when the webcast will be available.

Here’s my interview with Karen.

John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing, wowed the audience with the 5-step conversational marketing plan. He share how to create an education-based, information-rich branding strategy. I’ve been following John for a couple of years now, as a subscriber to his blog and a fellow tweeter on twitter. I was delighted when he agreed to an interview. I hope you’ll enjoy all these interviews as much as I enjoyed speaking with these four delightful and insightful professionals. Here’s my interview with John.

Their Books
Girls Guide To Building A Million Dollar Business	Duct Tape Marketing

Microsoft Office Live Small Business is providing some great tools for the solorpreneur. Not only can you manage your projects, you can develop your contact database, email marketing, resource center, and you can host your site over there too.

Now you can set up your first site at Microsoft’s Office Live and when you’re ready, bring a designer/programmer in to enhance your site. The most important aspect though is YOU can easily update your site through the web. I’d really encourage you to go over an take a look at Microsoft’s Office Live Small Business.

Go there now and check it out!!

Did you know that women are starting up businesses at a much faster rate than men? However, many female entrepreneurs still struggle to succeed. Susan Solovic, author of "Girls’ Guide to Building a Million-Dollar Business" and co-founder of SBTV, notices that many women are afraid to say "I want to make money" because they might be labeled as aggressive or greedy. She has found that women often do not think big enough or push their ambitions far enough and end up losing out on growth and opportunities.

San Diego, Tuesday, April 15, 2008, (Check Out The Line Up of Speakers) Westin Horton Plaza San Diego is the place to be. If you have plans, get out of them and join women business owners from around the county for an inspiring and educational day. Microsoft Office Live Small Business is hosting a five city tour across America that will allow women to learn smart and effective strategies for starting and developing a business.

Susan Solovic is one of the speakers at this event and she and the other speakers are available to speak with you if you would like to hear more. A collection of women entrepreneurs will be presenting at each local event as panelists and are available for a chat as well.

I’ve been talking to you about leveraging your business online and this panel of speakers will enhance everything I’ve ever said to you. I follow John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing, not only through is blog feed, but on Twitter as well.

Register Here For The Event, NOW!