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If you are always moving at breakneck speed, you miss chances to spot trends, learn new skills and keep current on biz practices. As an entrepreneur, renew and recharge yourself.

Plan for Lifelong Learning.

1. Create an email folder called TRAINING. Put great articles, hotlinks and enewsletters in the folder for reference. If you can’t read it at the time and visit your training folder once a month–you still get a good source of helpful info.

2. Get an email feed or RSS feed of your FAVORITE BLOGS. This is great. Pick three at most–don’t overload. But, get info that has value to you direct to your desktop. Try these: Seth Godin on Marketing, SCORE Women’s Success Blog, and The Entrepreneurial Generation.

3. Take online courses. Anywhere from 5-45 minutes. Okay, so a bit more than 15 minutes–but online, anytime can be a great way to brush up on a subject or add some new learning. For a busy entrepreneur. Online resources can really save the day. Take a look at the choice of nearly 40, online workshops thru SCORE.

 -Christine Banning, SCORE
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“Should I do SEO myself or hire a firm to do it?  If so, which one?”  After my post If You Don’t Know About SEO, Start with Pre-SEO, I got that comment from Jo.  My answer is: if you can afford it, hire the right firm to do it.  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is too complex and technical to accomplish more than the basics by yourself.   But how do you choose an SEO provider?

There a many companies selling these services, and it’s important to know what you are buying.  SEO can involve:

Keyword research
Optimization of existing web pages
Creation of new web pages
Submission to major search engines
Submission to major directories
Link building
Web page revisions
Tracking of website traffic
Monthly reports

Selection Criteria
Mark Jackson of SearchEngineWatch, in his post How to Select a Search Engine Optimization Firm, says you need to consider four factors:

1.  Your goals, like brand building or measurable revenue growth from the process over time
2.  Special challenges with your firm, like you or your staff’s ability to write copy, spend time building links or implement technical changes to website copy
3.  Experience of the SEO provider, including years doing SEO and examples of satisfied clients
4.  Transparency about their services, so you understand what they will do and how to help and evaluate them.  Selecting a Reputable SEO Provider (ClickZ) provides an excellent outline if you are trying to nail down the scope of SEO services.  Or see Ten Tips for Choosing the Right SEO Partner.

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