Doing Business Online

• Going Beyond Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter

  Businesses can learn lessons from the presidential campaigns about how to use social media sites to connect with people, find customers, and make millions.
  Brent Leary

• Market Online without Spamming

  If you’re not careful, your small business’ e-mail marketing campaign could end up in a potential customer’s spam filter. Avoid this by certifying your e-mail messages and using other common-sense approaches to sending e-mail.
  Michelle V. Rafter

• Take that Blog Down

  The novelty of writing and maintaining a business blog can wear off pretty quickly, but a stale blog is worse than none at all. Here are some strategies to rejuvenate that old blog.
  Renee Oricchio

• Use Social Media to Promote Your Website

  Taking time to produce a blog, newsletter, or other content on your website? Get users to pass the content around the Web using sites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.
  Minda Zetlin

• Web Surveys: Taking the Pulse of Customers

  What's the easiest way to understand customer satisfaction? Online surveys can help you get an unbiased evaluation of your service, products, and other feedback in order to help pinpoint any problem areas.
  Michelle V. Rafter

• Use RSS to Stay on Top of Competition

  Really Simple Syndication (RSS) boxes are everywhere these days -- on news sites, blogs and business webpages. You can use these feeds to gain business intelligence in your field and stay on top of competitors.
  Marc Saltzman

• Video Podcasts: It's Showtime!

  No matter what the budget, small business owners can use video podcasts to effectively promote their companies and themselves.
  Michelle V. Rafter

• Banish Blog Spam

  It’s great when your company blog gets noticed -- but not so great when the acclaim makes it a spam magnet. By taking a few simple steps, companies can stop spam from clogging the comments section of their blog.
  Michelle V. Rafter

• Putting Widgets to Work

  Widgets are no longer just for your Facebook page. Small and mid-sized businesses are using these online applications for viral marketing, to generate interest in their products and to interact with customers.
  Bill Pfleging

• From Blogs to Online Communities

  Now that there are so many blogs, and search engines aren't reliable enough to be the main source of Internet-based customers, online communities may be the next way that businesses reach customers through the Web.
  Anita Campbell

• Is Your Business PCI Compliant?

  Nearly every business that processes credit-card payments will have to comply with payment card industry (PCI) standards, which are very specific about how data is handled. That includes smaller and smaller businesses.
  Minda Zetlin

• Social Media for Business Sake

  Social media has made it easier for us to connect with people on the basis of common business interests. It also now rivals search for driving online traffic. Businesses need to embrace, not ignore these new tools.
  Brent Leary