Is Your Website a Penguin Victim?

On April 24, 2012 Google released a new update to their search ranking algorithm dubbed “Penguin.” The goal of the update, according to Google, was to combat the effect of “webspam” in its rankings. Google’s post on the release claims that the algorithmic adjustments were made to counteract keyword stuffing, link stuffing and other “techniques that don’t benefit users, where the intent is to look for shortcuts or loopholes that would rank pages higher than they deserve to be ranked.”

If your website saw a drop in position or page rank over the past few weeks, it may be because of your SEO tactics. (And if you did, you’re not alone. Read Danny Sullivan’s SearchEngineLand post on Penguin Two Weeks In.) If you didn’t see a drop, but you use the now penalized techniques, you may see one soon. Google is actively targeting link networks and blog networks, and by many accounts is now not only discounting the value of these paid links but also actually penalizing sites for having links on what it deems “webspam” sites. (Read recent posts on the topic here and here).
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Friday Small Business Funnies: If technology was like history and fashion…

Comic by Matt Rushing. Illustration by Kristi Siedow-Thompson

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PaySimple at Finovate

I normally don’t like to blog about our accomplishments — at least not on the company blog — but I was especially excited about our presentation at Finovate in San Francisco this morning, where our CEO – Eric Remer – and VP of Product Development – Jenae Wiegert, showcased our latest technology platform.

Finovate, deemed to be the showcase of the future of financial and banking technology, handpicks companies to present, in 7 minutes or less (no slides allowed), what makes their technology a needle-mover. Our team gave an awesome presentation and showed to the financial world the technology we’re so excited about: Camp.

With Camp, large enterprises with small business customer bases can offer a custom-branded, turnkey receivables automation technology for their small business members with very little startup time and capital. Continue reading…

Try Controlled Location Sharing with this Free App

In the old days, a telephone conversation typically began with “hello” and progressed from there. Today, with the mobile phone ubiquitous, the “hello” is generally followed by “where are you?” This is particularly true if you’re en-route to a meeting, out of the office, or otherwise on the go.

Location sharing mobile apps have tried to address this issue by enabling you to let others track you based on your cell phone GPS. But they have the downside of letting people track you constantly, so that they always know where you are. That’s a bit unsettling. After all, you might want Customer A to know where you are when you’re on your way to meet them, but you probably don’t want them to know when you’re sitting in Customer B’s office.

What you really want to do is share location temporarily and only when it is pertinent and to your advantage… give others a glimpse of your location, not total access. The free Glympse mobile app does just that.
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How debit card processing fees have changed since the Durbin amendment

Small credit unions can rest assured with the recent study posted by the Federal Reserve on the effects the Durbin amendment has had on debit card processing. The data reveals that, as was intended, credit unions with less than $10 billion in revenue (who were exempt), have been barely effected.

Why all the fear and speculation, even with the exemption? With almost double the average interchange fee of a larger bank, credit unions feared that merchants and consumers would start preferring debit cards with lower fees—making credit unions unable to compete with large banks.

However, it seems that the bill has had little to no fallout, which is such a rarity that everyone seems almost stumped by its effectiveness. Continue reading…

Small Business Funnies: Keeping track of it all

Comic and illustration by Kristi Seidow-Thompson

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How payment processing can change your business

Last week, I walked out of our office to see Blake Street buzzing with people adorned in purple and black jerseys. As is standard this time of year, being located three blocks from Coors Field, we get to witness fans heading over to the game and all of the hot dog, peanut, and ticket sales that proliferate in the blocks surrounding.

Walking past a ticket “broker,” I overheard him talking to man wearing a Cincinnati jersey (even though we were playing the Mets) discussing the option of accepting credit cards for his ticket sales.

“I’ve thought about getting one of those things,” he said. I can only assume he was referring to a mobile credit card reader. “But cash is so easy for me right now.” Continue reading…

Free Business Templates

One of the hardest things small business people need to do is create from a blank slate. If you’ve started your own business, then you’re probably pretty good at it. But, you’re also probably smart enough to know that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. And when it comes to standard business documents, starting from a template is typically a great shortcut, provided you do enough customization to turn the template into a document that meets your exact business needs.

There are many websites offering templates for everything from business letters to video themes, and the content is of varying quality so it can be hard to know where to go first. A good place to start is the Template Gallery for Google Docs. Continue reading…

Friday Funnies: Small Business Stresses

Comic by Matt Rushing. Illustration by Kristi Siedow-Thompson.

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Free Utility Deletes Files from Your Computer—For Good

As most computer users know, deleting a file isn’t as permanent as it sounds. Typically that file ends up in your Recycle Bin, where anyone can retrieve it (even you—which can be a stroke of luck if you’ve deleted by mistake). Even if you empty the Recycle Bin, the files in it aren’t really gone. A simple piece of software can often retrieve them– and you know that software is readily available to unscrupulous people who might happen upon your PC. Even it is never lost or stolen, files you’d rather not expose can be accessed by repair people or even the next owner of a recycled or re-sold computer.

Does that thought worry you? Don’t have a cow! When you absolutely positively want that file gone, erased, turned to ashes, vaporized and vanished Moo0 FileShrededer can do the job—for free. Continue reading…