Last week, we introduced you to Sara Richardson-McCreery , a Web design expert who is writing for Office Live Small Business about Web design and related issues. She's the founder of an award-winning Web design company , and so has plenty of experience with making websites look their best. Her latest article is about how a PayPal button makes it easy to take customer payments online . Many organizations...

SCORE recently launched a campaign called "Accelerate Your Success" to help small-business owners survive the recession. Visit SCORE’s Accelerate page to take a look. Each month, a new online toolkit offers advice and resources for entrepreneurs. The focus in March is on accelerating your sales, and the help you'll find includes: Advice on sales strategies for an economic downturn, including...

If you're like most small-business owners, at one time or another you've made the common — but potentially deadly — mistake of relying too heavily on one big client. It's easy to do. When you're swamped with projects or orders from a key client, you get so busy you forget that you've got to keep marketing, even when (especially when) you don't think you have time to market....

A key component of the new Office Live Small Business Community site is our Wiki . It's your chance to show your expertise around building and/or maintaining Office Live Small Business websites, and to share that expertise with the thousands of others who visit the community on a daily basis. Why do we have a wiki? Because we know many of you out there know our service as well as the people who...

We could all use a little positivity these days, so I hope you'll find as much inspiration as I did in the story of Richard and Laura Lee Ray. Reporting on small-business owners who are giving themselves pay cuts to help their companies stay afloat, CNNMoney.com spotlighted this tenacious couple from Crestview, Fla., who opened their mobile pet spa business, Zoom Groom, last May and still haven't...

As promised in my earlier post, here is the first of several articles about Web design from Sara Richardson-McCreery. She's the founder of an award-winning Web design company , and has plenty of experience with making websites look their best. In case you were not aware, Office Live Small Business has recently introduced several features that can help you customize your site design. If you prefer...

Are you wondering how to get more customers to your store, restaurant, or website — and get them to buy? Try offering something for nothing — or, to be more specific, two for the price of one. Two-for-one pricing offers are a hot sales tactic right now, reports USA Today , which says the strategy is being used by every type of business from restaurants and retailers to car dealerships and cell-phone...

Unless you are a professional Web designer, you probably have questions about how to create the right website for your business or organization. Your website has to be both eye-catching and functional, or it isn't going to meet your needs. With this in mind, we've consulted an expert. Sara Richardson-McCreery, founder of the award-winning Spike Likes Web Design in the Washington, D.C., area...