No question, owning a small business can mean greater challenges than running a large one or a chain store. Part of your growth strategy is holding off new competitors (businesses newer than you) while you take on the more-established competition with more resources. This is easier to do in some industries than in others, and we can all learn from one another. But look to the coffee world for a second...

I saw a statistic the other day that blew me away. According to Jupiter Research, 61% of online consumers use search engines on a daily basis . For anyone with a Web site – whether you’re selling products or offering services – that’s got to be a pretty compelling reason to advertise on search sites. Now, I know some of you think search marketing is a bit mysterious. And if you’re new to keywords and...

I’ve managed many Web sites in my career and often come back to the same concept: Keep it simple! I found that one of the toughest parts of Web site creation is figuring out what to write. I’m often surprised at people’s natural instincts to go overboard and want to add everything to a Web site. The result is paralysis, brought on by being overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to create all the content...

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know we’ve devoted some space to the virtues of e-mail marketing for small businesses. Now, see what others have to say on this topic. Our colleague David Baker of digital marketing services firm Avenue A|Razorfish offers some great insights on why e-mail is such a vital tool for small business . On a related note, last week we published some interesting...

Here’s a confession you can’t share with my boss: I think I’m having way too much fun at work. You see, we just developed this set of full-color comic strips featuring a cast of characters who work in a fictitious travel company. Margie, John, and Delores discover ways to use Microsoft Office Live Small Business to overcome workplace challenges. How fun is that? Here’s our cast, created for us by Johnny...

Now you can share the excitement. We’ve just posted free, on-demand webcasts from our recent Vision to Venture tour, and I’ve got to tell you, the content is awesome. In case you didn’t hear about it, earlier this spring Microsoft Office Live Small Business hosted an entrepreneurial road show that visited five cities around the country. Women business owners and those dreaming about taking the entrepreneurial...

We built Microsoft Office Live Small Business to be a do-it-yourself Web site solution. And from some of the terrific sites I’ve seen our subscribers create, I think it’s working out nicely for many of you. But we also understand that some who sign up for our service may get, well, stuck. You discover you don’t really have the time or necessary oomph to get your site up and running. That’s why I’d...

While flying home from a conference in California the other day, I got to chatting with the woman sitting next to me. I was telling her that I work for a Microsoft service that helps small businesses get up and running on the Web. She stopped me mid-sentence, wanting to know if I knew anything about the next Microsoft Small Business Summit. Apparently a colleague of hers had caught some of the presentations...