My Vegan Space

A new report reveals that business deposits far outweigh loans to businesses, particularly among small firms facing an ongoing struggle to access finance.

The report, published by banking research and advisory firm East amp; Partners, comes as major banks insist that they are keen to lend to small companies, many of which have found it difficult to access finance since the global financial crisis.

Small business is already struggling with pessimistic consumer sentiment, which recorded its third consecutive monthly fall in July to hit its lowest level since May 2009, according to the Westpac-Melbourne Institute index.

Data from East amp; Partners, whose clients include about 30 banks, shows business deposits far outweigh loans to businesses, especially small firms.

According to the report the business banking ratio has reached 1.25, up from 1.18 a year ago, which means 25% more in deposits is being taken from businesses than is being lent back to business customers.

Westpac, the second largest home lender, has by far the highest business deposit-lending ratio of the big four banks, scoring 1.67, which means Westpac has 67% more business deposits than business loans.

The Commonwealth Bank recorded the next highest ratio, with 48% more business deposits than business loans. The business deposit-business lending ratio is the highest on record for Westpac and equal highest for CBA.

According to the survey firm’s principal analyst and report author Paul Dowling NAB is the only bank that hasn’t reduced its lending to SMEs since the global financial crisis.

“Banks are saying there’s no demand from SMEs for borrowing and our research shows less than 10% of SMEs have demand for borrowing over the next six months,” Dowling says.

“However part of the reason for that depressed demand is the experience they’ve had over the past few years trying to access credit. A lot of them have decided it’s too hard, too expensive and the hurdles are too high.”

Dowling says anecdotal evidence, based on the firm’s interaction with 35,000 businesses, is that SMEs are finding it hard to borrow money, which is cause for concern.

“SMEs are the wealth generators and drivers of employment and innovation, and if they are not growing it raises questions for the economy,” Dowling says.

The report reveals that small businesses may be subsidising borrowing by big business.

Micro firms (less than $5 million turnover) and small businesses ($5-20 million) deposit more than double the amount they borrow while institutional clients (with at least $530 million turnover) deposit only about half of what they borrow.

The gap between the small end of town and large corporations has increased sharply since the GFC, when small business borrowing roughly matched deposits.

UPS Store sets up contests to help small business marketers
By: Mark Haslan

July 13th, 2011

For the small business owners struggling to market their business with brochures, letterheads and postcards, help may be on the way in the form of a reward for the hard work from the UPS Store.

The Promotion Promotion, a contest to be launched on Facebook by the UPS Store, will award the grand prize winner with an integrated marketing campaigned valued at up to $50,000. Small businesses can enter the contest by visiting the UPS Stores corporate Facebook page starting July 18.

Every UPS Store franchisee is a small business owner, so we know how challenging it can be to promote and grow a company, said UPS Store marketing executive Michelle Van Slyke. She continued by saying the promotion is about providing business owners with resources to grow their business. Weekly prizes will include gift cards, tablets and more.

According to the Small Business Associations website, a small business marketing plan should understand the business target market and have a flexible budget. If business owners see a positive return on investment response from their marketing plan, they should be able to increase the amount of money put into the budget.

Related posts:

1. Survey: Marketers plan to hire print and web promotion employees in third quarter
2. Entrepreneurs can save money with poster design contests

SAN DIEGO, Jul 13, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) –
The
UPS Store (R) network announced today that it will
launch a Facebook contest called “The Promotion Promotion” on July 18.
The contest, designed to arm small business owners with tools and
resources to promote their business, runs through Aug. 31. The grand
prize winner will receive an integrated marketing campaign valued up to
$50,000.

Small business owners can enter the contest by visiting The
UPS Store corporate Facebook page. Grand prize submissions will
be evaluated by a panel of experts and the winner will be chosen based
on the contestant’s passion for small business. Official rules,
including criteria for the grand prize and contest eligibility, will be
available on The UPS Store corporate Facebook page starting July
18.

“Every The
UPS Store franchisee is a small business owner, so we know how
challenging it can be to promote and grow a company,” said Michelle Van
Slyke, who oversees marketing for The UPS Store network. “The
Promotion Promotion contest is all about providing small business owners
with resources they can use to help grow their business.”

The Promotion Promotion sweepstakes also will award up to $3,000 in
weekly prizes, including an Apple(R) iPad 2(R) with
Square and gift cards from American Express(R), The UPS Store
and Costco. Contestants can enter for a chance to win the weekly prize
drawing by dropping their name into a virtual fishbowl.

Doner,
The UPS Store network’s advertising agency of record, will work
with the grand prize winner to examine the business’ needs, develop a
marketing plan, produce creative and run it in appropriate media.

In addition, The UPS Store network will offer Facebook-only
coupons for discounts on business-related services at participating The
UPS Store franchise locations. Starting the second week, fans
choose the next week’s offer by crowdsourcing via Facebook Questions.
The Promotion Promotion tab also will stream relevant articles from the
business section of msnbc.com.

The UPS Store centers help with the logistics of running a small
business, including mailboxes with a real street address, packing and
shipping services and professional printing services such as: color and
black-and white prints; binding; lamination; finishing, and folding.
Customers can select from a variety of print products, including
presentations, flyers and brochures, business cards, menus and more.
Participating locations also offer online
printing and wide-format printing.

For more information on The UPS Store products or services, or to
find a location near you, please visit
www.theupsstore.com/logistics .

With more than 4,700 locations, The UPS Store and Mail Boxes
Etc. network comprises the world’s largest franchise system of
retail shipping, postal, print and business service centers throughout
the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada. In the U.S. and Puerto Rico, The
UPS Store and Mail Boxes Etc. locations are independently
owned and operated by licensed franchisees of Mail Boxes Etc., Inc., a
UPS subsidiary. In Canada, locations are independently owned and
operated by licensed franchisees of master licensee MBEC Communications,
L.P. For additional information on The UPS Store, including
information on franchise opportunities for opening
a The UPS Store location*, visit
www.theupsstore.com .

*This is not an offer of a franchise. Any franchise offer is made only
after a Franchise Disclosure Document has been provided.

SOURCE: The UPS Store

MBE, a UPS company
Becca Andrews, 858-997-5297
raandrews@mbe.com

Copyright Business Wire 2011

When it comes to solar power, small- and mid-sized business have faced a Goldilocks dilemma. Existing solar financing solutions for homeowners and corporations have been too small and too big, respectively. But now there’s something that fits them just right.

Solar@Work, a new program announced today San Francisco’s Department of the Environment at the Intersolar North America conference held in the city, will offer solar systems to Bay Area business via a group purchase or aggregation model. “We think of it like a Groupon for solar,” said Melanie Nutter, department director.

This overcomes historic barriers for small and mid-sized businesses that aren’t issues for big businesses, said Jenna Goodward, an associate with the World Resources Institute, an adviser to the program. “They’re smaller, so it’s that’s much more important to aggregate demand and negotiate as a buying group,” she said. “And a lot of them don’t have the cash flow to do an up-front purchase.” Nor do they have access to prime credit, she said.

Jason Coughlin, project leader at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), another adviser, explained further. “You’ll talk to bankers, and they’ll say, ‘The work we have to do for a 200 kilowatt installation is similar to the work we have to do on a 2 megawatt system.’ So if we can do twenty 100 kilowatt systems using standardized documents, and use one solar installer and one financial partner, in effect we create a 2 megawatt installation project, which is interesting to the financial partner, to the installer, and to the independent small businesses who are getting the benefits as if they were doing one large system.

Solar@Work aims to install 2 megawatts by the end of the year, which is a modest target of about 20 buildings. However, this is just a pilot project that organizers hope will be expanded in the Bay Area and replicated elsewhere in the United States and throughout the world.

Nutter said she expects the program to be popular in San Francisco because they designed it in response to feedback from small business. “We anticipate there will be huge interest,” she said.

Optony, a global research and consulting services firm focused on solar development, is also an adviser. SolarCity, a distributed generation firm that recently gained star power with a $280 million investment from Google, was selected as the vendor. The company, based in the Bay Area, has more than 15,000 projects completed or underway and expects to hire more than 400 new workers in the second half of 2011, including 100 in the Bay Area.

Solar@Work offers several financing options for businesses and commercial property owners to install solar power: cash purchase, solar lease, capital loan, power purchase agreements, property-assessed financing, and others, said Nutter. The program will help match the buyers with appropriate financing.

“We anticipate that buildings that participate in the program will have energy bills at the current rate or lower,” said Nutter. “The program has performance guarantee to deliver savings.”

The more businesses that sign up, the lower the prices will be for the entire buying group. The largest reductions will be available if the group purchases more than 3 megawatts by the end of 2011.

Aside from the discounted group price and performance guarantee, program participants will get a special pre-negotiated lease for 10 years with a buyout and free technical assistance from the city to evaluate their solar options.

“Sometimes it can be intimidating for folks who haven’t purchased solar to review bids, to know what’s a good price, what’s a proper inverter warranty, and how to choose among these ancillary services that come with a solar installation,” said NREL’s Coughlin. “Providing unbiased technological assistance is really valuable.”

San Francisco’s Department of Environment also offers free energy audits to small businesses, so all participants will get that service as well to help them reduce energy costs and gain access to energy efficiency rebates, said Nutter.

Part of what makes the performance guarantee equation work at this point is American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding from the US Department of Energy’s Solar America Cities program and support from US DOE’s SunShot Initiative,

“The Treasury grant, which offers cash payments for 30 percent of the cost of a solar installation (in lieu of a tax credit) is currently expected to expire at the end 2011,” said Nutter. But “we are confident that by leveraging the Federal Renewable Energy Investment Tax Credit that offers 30 percent in tax credits through 2016, we will be able to provide the needed financial incentive for small and medium-sized commercial buildings to participate in the program in 2012 and beyond.”

Nutter said the federal subsidies and Solar@Work are stepping stones to driving down costs for solar. “We envision a future in which subsidies will no longer be needed as an incentive,” she said. “Until then, we will be utilizing the rebates and credits that are available in our current and future group purchasing programs.”

While San Francisco is leading the way, this type of program is easily scalable and replicable elsewhere, said the partners. “One of the reasons why we’re so excited about participating in this program is that there is replicability,” said Alex Perera, codirector of business engagement for World Resources Institute. We see this is something that could be rolled out to other cities and even other countries. WRI is working in China and other big markets.”

NEW YORK, June 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Newtek Business Services, NASDAQ: NEWT, The Small Business Authority, announced today the next live radio broadcast on cloud computing solutions from The Small Business Authority Studio at 77WABC Radio in New York. National listeners can also tune in at www.wabcradio.com and click listen live. The program, The Small Business Authority Hour, will be hosted by Barry Sloane, CEO, President and Chairman of Newtek Business Services and will be broadcast on Saturday, July 2, 2011 at 4:00 pm EDT.

Microsoft Corporation is a strategic partner of The Small Business Authority and the program will feature Corey Prince, Industry Market Development Manager for Microsoft Cloud Services for Small Business. Corey will be joining Barry Sloane to discuss small business trends, cloud computing and other IT challenges. Because of the growing interest and importance of the topic, this is the second consecutive show that The Small Business Authority hour has devoted to cloud computing issues for small and independent business owners.

Corey Prince, Industry Market Development Manager for Microsoft Cloud Services for Small Business said, In todays turbulent business environment, small businesses are facing ever increasing challenges. Intensified competition, globalization, a daunting economic climate and a blistering pace of technological innovation that require small businesses to be nimble, knowledgeable, efficient, and proactive. The Small Business Authority Hour provides insightful advice and commentary, from both experts and peers, to help arm and inform businesses with relevant, high value data to face this broad spectrum of challenges.

President and CEO Barry Sloane said, Our most recent show, focusing on cloud computing was overwhelmingly received and introduced many valuable concerns and developments regarding cloud computing for small business. We are excited about featuring Microsoft as a preeminent participant in cloud computing and a partner to work with our customers to help them grow their business, reduce their costs and have state of the art IT solutions. In addition to providing valuable market intelligence and discussing hot topics, we will be taking calls from independent business owners across the United States at 800-848-9222.

The show will be hosted by Barry Sloane, President and CEO of Newtek Business Services, Inc. and co-hosted by Laura Smith from 77WABC. The Small Business Authority Hour is broadcast from the Small Business Authority Studios atop Madison Square Garden the first Saturday of every month at 4:00pm EDT. We will take live questions from independent business owners beginning at 4:15pm until the show ends at 5:00pm EDT.

Newtek Business Services, The Small Business Authority, provides the following products and services:

• Electronic Payment Processing: eCommerce, electronic solutions to accept non-cash payments, including credit and debit cards, check conversion, remote deposit capture, ACH processing, and electronic gift and loyalty card programs.
• Managed Technology Solutions (Cloud Computing): Full-service web host which offers eCommerce solutions, shared and dedicated web hosting and related services including domain registration and online shopping cart tools.
• eCommerce: A suite of services that enable small businesses to get up and running on-line quickly and cost effectively, with integrated web design, payment processing and shopping cart services.
• Business Lending: Broad array of lending products including SBA 7(a) and SBA 504 loans.
• Insurance Services: Commercial and personal lines of insurance, including health and employee benefits in all 50 states, working with over 40 insurance carriers.
• Web Services: Customized web design and development services.
• Data Backup, Storage and Retrieval: Fast, secure, off-site data backup, storage and retrieval designed to meet the specific regulatory and compliance needs of any business.
• Accounts Receivable Financing: Receivable purchasing and financing services.
• Payroll: Complete payroll management and processing services.

Newtek Business Services, Inc., The Small Business Authority, is a direct distributor of a wide range of business services and financial products to the small- and medium-sized business market under the Newtek brand. Since 1999, Newtek has helped small- and medium-sized business owners realize their potential by providing them with the essential tools needed to manage and grow their businesses and to compete effectively in todays marketplace. Newtek provides its services to over 100,000 business accounts and has positioned the Newtek brand as a one-stop-shop provider of such business services. According to the US Small Business Administration, there are over 27.5 million small businesses in the United States, which in total represent 99.7% of all employer firms.

Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

Statements in this press release including statements regarding Newteks beliefs, expectations, intentions or strategies for the future, may be forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the plans, intentions and expectations reflected in or suggested by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, intensified competition, operating problems and their impact on revenues and profit margins, anticipated future business strategies and financial performance, anticipated future number of customers, business prospects, legislative developments and similar matters. Risk factors, cautionary statements and other conditions, which could cause Newteks actual results to differ from managements current expectations, are contained in Newteks filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available through http://www.sec.gov.

Rubenstein Public Relations
Telephone: (212) 843-9335
Contact: Liz Petrova / lpetrova@rubensteinpr.com

SOURCE Newtek Business Services

Back to top

RELATED LINKS

http://www.newtekbusinessservices.com

Lenovo has announced two new ThinkServer products, the TS130, which becomes the companys new entry level server, and the TS430, an entirely new server aimed at SMBs with large storage requirements. Both have new Intel Xeon processor technology and a broad range of features, including Intel remote management tools.

The TS130 is the replacement for the TS200V, which Lenovo launched at the beginning of last year. It becomes the entry level server in their small business lineup.

With the TS130, even in a value oriented box, starting at $USD 499 list, you get a true first server solution, said Andrew Jeffries, Lenovos worldwide product marketing manager for ThinkServer. It delivers the combination of true server attributes — ECC memory, enterprise class hard drives, on board RAID protection , and the kicker, you can source that model with remote manageability tools. Its a feature-rich box at a value price with remote management capabilities to easily service it, a wonderful tool, even for the little guys.

Jeffries thinks the new Intel AMT 7.0 manageability tools in the ThinkServer TS130 will be the real selling feature for small businesses.

Like the TS200V before it, it is the only server in the space that uses Intel remote management technology, he said. Thats what really turns a lot of heads.

Jeffries thinks the TS130 will find customers upmarket as well.

Its both a wonderful first server solution for SMBs and a wonderful mail server or file server for big market customers, he said

The TS430 is an all-new, built from the ground up model which shares some features of the TS130, notably the manageability tools. But while the TS130 maxes out at 4TB of SATA storage, this one goes up to 16 TB.

The story with the TS430 is room to grow, Jeffries said. Its for customers needing big storage capacity, with sophisticated RAID needs, but who still dont need more than a single socket server for their business needs.

This box will be very exciting, he said. Its the first tower server we offer with redundant power supply. With the next-gen Xeon, the single processor stack, the huge storage capacity, it instantly becomes the most scalable tower server we offer. We know this will be a best seller for customers who dont need dual sockets.

The TS430 starts at $USD 699. Both it and the TS130 will be available at the end of June.

Jeffries said that Lenovos partners have been asking them to make a stronger push in the server market.

Partners have said we have to grow up our server side business, to bring in the latest technology, and the quality of our Think products in our servers, he said.

Jeffries also said that even though their server prospects typically already have servers from other vendors, they have success selling to them.

We won the relationship with them on the features of our notebooks and desktops, and the customers expect that we will bring that to our server portfolio, he said. They expect all the features that have made us successful on the client side. And as they evaluate the configurations and shop around, they see our latest features, the manageability tools, and the scalability.

Lenovo also announced the ThinkCentre M71e, an entry-level desktop. It offers Intel Sandy Bridge processors, rapid boot up and security authentication features. It starts at $USD 529 and will be available beginning in July.

In the latest sign that the economic recovery may have lost whatever modest oomph it had, more small businesses say that they are planning to shrink their payrolls than say they want to expand them.

That is according to a new report released Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business, a trade group that regularly surveys its membership of small businesses across America.

The federation’s report for May showed the worst hiring prospects in eight months. The finding provides a glimpse into the pessimism of the nation’s small firms as they put together their budgets for the coming season, and depicts a more gloomy outlook than other recent (if equally lackluster) economic indicators because this one is forward-looking.

While big companies are buoyed by record profits, many small businesses, which employ half of the country’s private sector workers, are still struggling to break even. And if the nation’s small companies plan to further delay hiring — or, worse, return to laying off workers, as they now hint they might — there is little hope that the nation’s 14 million idle workers will find gainful employment soon.

“Never in the 37-year history of our company have we seen anything at all like this,” said Frank W. Goodnight, president of Diversified Graphics, a publishing company in Salisbury, N.C. He says there is “no chance” he will hire more workers in the months ahead.

“We’re being squeezed on all sides,” he says.

Each month, the National Federation of Independent Business surveys the owners of small businesses about how they are doing and where they think the economy is going. One question asks whether businesses plan to increase or decrease the number of employees in the next three months. Economists then calculate a net hiring figure by subtracting the percentage of companies that plan to downsize from the percentage that plans to expand.

In May, the share of companies that planned to shrink their work forces was one percentage point higher than the share of companies that planned to expand them, the first time since last September that this indicator was negative. And even though it was slightly negative, this index, a fairly reliable indicator of hiring decisions, has been trending downward all year.

The unemployment rate has been stubbornly high in the last year, primarily because companies have stopped hiring, not laying off more workers. Although layoffs were at a record low in April, the latest monthly data available, Tuesday’s survey suggests that workers may soon be challenged by both sides of the employment ledger.

With wages relatively stagnant in recent months, the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey found that workers’ expectations for their families’ income growth over the next year were at a record low. This is the first recovery in which, seven quarters in, there have been zero gains in aggregate wages and salaries.

Stagnant wages, coupled with the recent stock market slide and further declines in housing prices, have left consumers feeling not well-off enough to significantly increase their spending, which would encourage hiring.

“One thing you’ve got to understand is that we do not hire workers for the sake of hiring workers. We hire them to do jobs,” Mr. Goodnight said. “If we don’t have the work coming in, nothing will make me hire another person.”

When asked about the “single most important problem” facing their businesses, about one in four cited “poor sales,” according to the federation’s survey. Uncertainty over regulations is also mentioned frequently. About a third of businesses blame either “taxes” or “government requirements” for their current troubles, leading some economists to attribute the recent slide in overall business optimism to Washington’s protracted debates over tax policy, financial changes and health care.

Meanwhile, larger businesses, sitting on mountains of cash, have been weathering the weak recovery relatively well.

The Business Roundtable CEO Economic Outlook survey, also released on Tuesday, is a less closely watched report that relies on responses from the chief executives of larger companies. It found that the number of large companies expecting their American work forces to grow in the next six months far outnumbers those that anticipate shrinkage.

“What we’ve had is a tale of two recoveries,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics. “Between large businesses and small businesses, it is literally the best of times and the worst of times.”

Several factors have helped larger companies succeed, economists say.

Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former economic adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said, “Larger businesses have consistently had more going for them in this recovery.”

He added: “They have better access to credit markets. They have greater ease in exporting abroad where some economies are growing faster than ours. All that shows up in their profits.”

The one potential bright spot in the small-business survey involves industries that have had the smallest job growth but now seem willing to add jobs, according to William C. Dunkelberg, the chief economist for the federation.

These include construction and nonprofessional services like restaurants, which was crippled by the housing bust. Manufacturing, which had been the engine of job growth for many months before scaling back in May, also showed promise.

Social media is definitely on the ascension and small businesses must take note if they are to survive and thrive in a new global marketplace. But sometimes getting a handle on such a new and diverse field can take some time. Here at Small Business Trends, wed like to lend a helping hand. Enjoy the roundup below, a sort of social media soiree, and feel free to leave your own comments. We love to hear from you.

Overview

Taking a good look at social media. Check out this overview of social media and its uses for your small business. You may be surprised that more of these suggestions dont have to do with pitching your product or service. Turns out this is a very small part of what effective social media is about. The rest? Read on. The Bad Blogger

New study shows limits to content sharing. As we said in a post earlier this week, it may not be time to give up your blog or other traditional Website just yet to jump on the social media bandwagon. It turns out that while use of these social networking sites may be huge, they still account for a surprisingly small amount of content sharing. PC World

Trends

Social media and the customer community. Columnist and small business advocate Jim Blasingame is not the first to suggest that social media as a tool for business is here to stay. But he may be way out front in his precise predictions about the basic form social media will take in most businesses of the future. In the end, Jim says, it will be all about the customers. Big surprise! Forbes

How social is changing the meaning of success. If you dont know how the measure of expectation from your customers has changed online in the last few years, just look around. The new Facebook and Twitter dominated Web demands social components in everything you do and more personalized attention in the ever greater clamor for customer attention. iMedia Connection

Strategy

Ruining your reputation online. While social media can have many positive impacts online, it can also have some negative ones. See, as exhibit A, some of the unfortunate lapses leading to huge PR disasters recently. In addition to a social media strategy, be sure you have policies in place to protect against the worst of these. Patch

What Obama can teach us all about social marketing. The President of the United States has a product of his own to promote via social networking sites like Facebook: his policies and agenda ahead of November elections and what could be a challenging 2012 Presidential re-election bid. What can small business learn from the political arena? IT Wire

Tips

Small business strikes back. You may have heard that social media can create problems for your business as well as solutions. After all, today an irate customer can get on their favorite social media channel and start whacking away at your brand with little resistance. Fortunately, as this post shows, social media is not a one way street. Agent Genius

The future of marketing is social amd mobile. Or so says a major researcher advising marketers to cut back on one way advertising in traditional media (television, radio, newspapers) and amp up their efforts in social media and mobile marketing. The trend has been coming for quite some time. Online Media Daily

Tech

Facebook still king of social. Even if, as we noted earlier, data shows less sharing than might at first have been expected over social media channels, one site in particular still stands above the rest. You may spread your social media presence out over numerous platform to catch as wide an audience as possible, but dont forget FB. vatornews

Your customers dont want to engage. Its something weve heard over and over again. Create a Web presence for your business with Facebook or other social media and your customers will drop by, join and start spreading the word. Not so, says a recent study suggesting that customers actually dont like brands on social media. What does the future hold? Blogging Innovation

From Small Business TrendsSmall Business News: Social Media Soiree

Read more posts on Small Business Trends »

Youve created an awesome website. Youve optimized it with the right keywords in the right places. And yet, youre still showing up on page eight of Google search results for your keywords. What are you missing? Links.

Links from other websites pointing to yours, called backlinks, are a vital component of any small business SEO (search engine optimization) effort. To the search engines, a backlink from a trustworthy site to a page on your site is seen as a vote of confidence for your page. The more trusted and authoritative the site linking to yours is, and the more relevant the context of that backlink is to your pages content, the more that backlink will help your page rise in search engine results.

Here are 10 SEO link-building strategies that every small business with a website should know to improve search engine rankings and Web marketing.

1. Quality trumps quantity

Acworth Patch contributor April Zlotnik talked with Clemens Bak, owner of Gallery 4463.

#13;

Acworth Patch: Whats the hardest thing about being a small-business owner in Acworth?

#13;

Clemens Bak: I’m not sure that we are typical. An art gallery in Acworth is a relatively new thing, at least of this size. The hardest thing about being a small business owner is that it takes a lot of time to maintain a business especially when one has a full time job. Our business is staffed by volunteer artists throughout the month. We are a little different than your average business.

#13;

My biggest problem with being a small business owner in Acworth is that I am unable to devote myself to the business full time. By day I work for a major company in Kennesaw. The good thing is that we have so many wonderful volunteers and cooperating artists that make this gallery a reality–that is so unique.

#13;

Acworth Patch: Whats the best thing about your job?

#13;

Bak: The satisfaction of working with a lot of nice people and meeting a lot of people who are interested in the arts. This place is always filled with a lot of interesting people.

#13;

Acworth Patch: What is the best thing about Acworth?

#13;

Bak: The quality of life in Acworth. It’s a very comfortable small town. And it is well managed. It has a lot of amenities to offer people.

#13;

Acworth Patch: Why did you choose to open up your business in Acworth?

#13;

Bak: It is close to where I live and where I work. It’s a town that could definitely use a nice art gallery.

#13;

Acworth Patch: Why did you pick this particular kind of business?

#13;

Bak: I come from an artist background. I grew up doing it.

#13;

Acworth Patch: What are some of the services you offer that people dont know about?

#13;

Bak: We offer fine art, works from over 40 artists and we also have artist instruction going on. We have a two story building with studios upstairs. We have a fine arts print shop opening up soon. We also have three-dimensional works, pottery and glass works. We have prints of various kinds available.

#13;

Acworth Patch: Is there anything else you would like to share about your business?

#13;

Bak: We are a business that works on a monthly calendar of shows. Every month we have a different exhibition. The exhibits open with a great reception for the artist and the public. That happens every first Saturday of the year except on holiday weekends. We have a different show each month. We feature both artists from the gallery and we bring other artists in as well on occasion.