Local marketing is crucial for small businesses, as smaller companies typically provide products and services within a limited area. One of the first things you do during the formative stages of your business plan is conceive of and implement a local marketing strategy. Your plan should include both traditional and Internet-specific strategies.

The Basics of Local Marketing
Start by identifying your target market and figuring out, from a demographic standpoint, where they are and how to reach them. Then, break that market down into sub-categories and tweak your strategy to ensure you appeal to each of them directly. Be sure to collect feedback in the early stages of your strategy and adjust it going forward as needed.

Then, use these tried-and-true tips to expand your visibility in the offline world:

• Attend community events and distribute promotional material to community groups that match your target demographic(s).
• Submit a press release to your local newspaper(s) when you plan to participate in a community fundraiser, charity event or awareness campaign.
• Advertise grand opening promotions and giveaways on local radio, TV and newspapers.

Harness the Power of the Internet
The beauty of the Internet is its equal reach both globally and locally. Here are some of the ways in which you can put the Web to work for your locally oriented small business:

• Register your small business and create a listing with all the major search engines — sites like GetListed.org will be a great help, and giants like Yahoo! and Google offer locally oriented sub-categories.
• Be sure to register with any local search engines which service your community and the surrounding area
• Use geo-targeted keywords in your website content, tags and meta descriptions to attract local customers
• Build a blog and start back-linking campaigns with other local businesses to improve search engine rankings and synergize your local marketing efforts.
• Use social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to support your marketing strategies.

These tips will help you and your business reap the rewards of local reach and connect with a wide base of potential customers. And finally, remember that no strategy is “set in stone”, you will want to adjust your marketing efforts based on what resources work best for your business.

We’re Celebrating YOU with the Best of .Biz Awards

Where did the time go? Launched in late 2001,.biz is already 10 years old. That calls for a celebration. Of you, though, not us.

We created .biz to give you better domain name choices and stronger branding options. And you’ve responded.  Today, there are more than 2.2 million .biz domain registrations in over 190 countries. .biz is available in 15 languages including German, Portugese, and Chinese.

One small company, Blue Water Designs, saw business boom after securing the perfect .biz domain name in 2004 (www.bluewaterdesigns.biz). “.biz has helped me grow Blue Water’s client base,” said Fink. “I not only got the name I wanted but the business to match.”

To recognize your successes, we’ve created the Best of .Biz Awards. Here’s how they work. Go to www.my.biz/10year/  and tell us how you’ve used .biz to boost your business and marketing. You and your peers will vote on the winners, who in addition to receiving awards will get a Best of .Biz seal to give their websites added luster.

If you’re not using .biz yet and are looking to register a domain, welcome! Getting a .biz name is a very smart move. Studies show that half of all businesses with fewer than 10 employees and annual revenues under $1 million don’t have websites. In this day and age, that’s a barrier to growth.

We’re ready to help you get exactly the name you need, build your brand and accelerate your business online. Want proof? Go to www.my.biz/10Year/  and see the successes we’re recognizing with the Best of .Biz Awards and get your .biz domain today.

Read our Press Release.

This week, we shine the spotlight on benchmarkonline.biz, Delaware’s original Transmission Shops since 1967.  Benchmark Transmission is the transmission specialist with locations in Middletown, Newark, Wilmington, and Claymont.  They are highly qualified and ready to deliver the technical knowledge & skills for your every automatic transmission repair need.  Don’t take our word for it, read more about their clients testimonials and visit them  for your transmission needs.

This is a guest post by Wil Anderson. Wil helps small organizations build community outreach through free and low-cost tools. He can be found on Twitter (@wiljr) and on his website.

I was visiting with my sister a few weeks ago. She was taking me through all the new and exciting things happening with her business, and introducing me to new partners and friends.

We talked a lot about her operations and marketing, and how I could help her with different projects. While we were chatting, I asked how she did a few things:

• Accept payments (at the Tasting Room and at events)
• Record visitors (at the Tasting Room and at events)

She was doing both the old-fashioned way: credit cards, pen and paper. So we got to talking about how much time / money / resources these were consuming for each transaction. Turns out, it’s a lot. We talked about some solutions and I offered two: Square (for anywhere payments) and Google Docs (for form submissions). I’m sure there are others but these were two I thought she could get up and running quickly.

What I soon realized is that as a small business owner, it’s tough to stay on top of the latest technology trends that will likely have an impact on your business / industry. Since you are wearing more than one hat, the days are filled with activities that don’t allow you to focus on keeping up with the latest news.

When your business isn’t focused on technology, it’s even more of a challenge.

The great thing about being a small business is it’s easy to make change. While you might not have the same resources as the bigger players, there are tools available that can help you keep pace with them. And since you are wearing many hats, it will be easier to implement a new solution (ie, no need to go through IT, Marketing, Sales, Web, etc.).

Here are 3 (free!) tools you can use to help stay on top of today’s trends in your industry.

TWITTER
Twitter goes far beyond learning what everyone is having for lunch. Once you set up an account, simply head over to the search feature and start poking around. If you are a local business, you can narrow your search include all results located in a specific zip code or city.

So, if I’m in the winery business in San Diego, I might add that criteria into my search. Of course, I can add a handful of other searches related to wine – upcoming events, specific users / competitors / partners, etc.

Once you’ve found a handful of search criteria, save them. That way, you can quickly reference / review them as needed.

And just because your news feed / Twitter stream is coming in at a blistering pace doesn’t mean you have to keep up – just check in on it once a day until you get familiar with the setup. If you spend 30 minutes a day, you’ll be a pro after a week.

GOOGLE READER
Easily my favorite reading site. Coupled with Spool (below), it becomes a powerful research tool. Google Reader takes news ‘feeds’ from sites you choose and combines them into a format that allows you to read them quickly.

As an example, I follow soccer. Instead of visiting a handful of sites everyday, I subscribe to their feeds. Once these sites are updated (normally via blog posts), they are updated in my Google Reader. This makes it super easy to quickly review al the latest news. Naturally, the more sites you follow, the more time you’ll spend reviewing these feeds.

Let’s go back to the winery in San Diego. I have a number of wineries that I like to visit regularly. If they post news regularly, it might be a good idea to subscribe to their news feed. Then, before I head out to see them, I can review their news. When I meet up with them, I’m all caught up on what they’ve been up to.

(You can also do this with Twitter, assuming they have a Twitter account.)

It doesn’t have to be isolated to the winery industry. If you find something on Twitter, you can find a related website and follow their news through Google Reader.

I have about 100 feeds I actively follow, focused on everything I’m interested in, from soccer to marketing to gargoyles in New York.

SPOOL
Ok, so we have two great ways of finding and reading news related to our industry. Terrific. What happens if we don’t have enough time to read / watch / listen to them right now? That’s where Spool comes in. Spool allows you to save an article for later, with the added benefit of allowing you to review the saved article offline.

I use this service a lot. Let’s say I’m heading downtown on the subway – I’ll load up Spool on my phone and read those articles I saved, even when I don’t have an internet connection.

While there isn’t a direct integration with Twitter and Spool, it’s easy to copy the link into Spool and it saves it for later. Google Reader allows you to Spool articles directly from it’s service with a single click.

The great thing about each of these tools is they can be used on your computer and on your mobile device. It’s likely you don’t have much downtime but when you do, check in on the latest technology trends and see how they might help your small business.

Since .biz debuted in late 2001, it’s grown and changed rapidly like the Internet itself. As part of our 10th anniversary celebration, here’s a look at Web milestones over the past decade, courtesy of www.tamingthebeast.net. Was there really ever a world without Social Media?

2001

• The Internet has 500 million users.

2002

• Mozilla 1.0, which will eventually evolve into Firefox, is released. Internet Explorer has a 95 percent share of the browser market.

2003

• MySpace is launched.

2004

• The first version of Firefox is released and soon becomes a serious contender to Internet Explorer’s stranglehold.
• Google undergoes IPO via Dutch Auction format.
• Facebook is launched.

2005

• Jesse James Garrett coins the term AJAX and YouTube.com launches.
• Google launches blog search, but Technorati is still entrenched as the blog search leader.

2006

• Social networking sites and services sprout up like adolescent acne and the term “Web 2.0″ becomes a mantra .
• Twitter is founded as a research and development project.
• According to MessageLabs, spam is now 64.8% of all global email.

2007

• The term “bacn” comes into usage. Bacn refers to the many email alerts received by subscribers and members of social networking services that threaten to inundate their inboxes.
• Spam now comprises 90% of all enterprise email.
• Netscape announces the browser will soon no longer be developed or supported.

2008

• Google celebrates its 10th birthday.
• 1.1 billion people are using the Internet and women now outnumber men online.
• 120,000 new blogs are being created globally every day.

2008

• China now has the largest online population in the world.
• Over 162 million Top Level Domain Names (TLDs) were registered up until the end of the first quarter of 2008.
• Google’s launches new entry into the Web browser sphere, Google Chrome.
• According to Nielsen Online, 79% of US consumers have made an online purchase in the last 6 months.
• Over 100.1 million web sites were in operation as of March 2008.

2009

• The Internet now has 1.5 billion users and there are over 100 billion live web pages.

2010

• Internet stocks explode with triple-digit gains, leaving investors awestruck. Thanks to its streaming video offerings, movie-rental site Netflix (NFLX) soared 237% to $180.27 a share.
• Google leaves China after the search giant and the Chinese government butted heads over censorship issues.

2011

• World IPv6 Day is celebrated in June to highlight the depletion of IPv4 addresses, along with the corresponding growth of the IPv6.

What’s ahead in 2012? It’s predicted that over 154 million buyers will be online this year. Plus, 88% of Internet users will browse or research products. If your business has a website, congrats—you’re in position to cash in. If you’re not online, it’s time your business built a Web presence. Start with the right domain name. Start here with my.biz today!

This week we shine the spotlight on teknovation.biz.  This web-based service was originally launched to celebrate “all things” related to technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in East Tennessee. Sponsored by Pershing Yoakley & Associates, P.C., it serves as a service to those that are pursuing to advance the region’s economy through technology, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Teknovation.biz was designed for East Tennesseans to share their successes and strategies and learn from others. It is intended to help create more awareness of the region’s assets and help drive technology, innovation and entrepreneurial job growth.

East Tenneseans are encouraged to visit Teknovation.biz today and share developments in the technology, innovation and entrepreneurial areas!

In celebration of our 10th Anniversary, .biz is all about recognizing small business success. We have highlighted 10 that are competing for the first quarter – Best of .biz Award. As we decided on the first top sites to feature and started crafting their stories, we realized some similarities across all of them. Although industry-diverse, each of these sites has a unique mission to set themselves apart from other businesses and needed a domain name that would help them accomplish success.

Below are some excerpts from each of their stories featured on my.biz and awaiting your vote and support!

1. One most notable quote came from Tammy Fink, owner of Blue Water Designs – “.biz has helped me grow Blue Water’s client base. I not only got the name I wanted—but the business to match.”
2. For Sta.rtUp.biz, securing a .biz domain was the perfect fit for their business-minded audience.
3. Minimus.biz realized a potential market for everything in travel sizes and took this “business” online at minimus .biz.
4. Though the Recharge Sports Injury Center already had the ingredients for a successful business model, this .biz success story really took off when they went online. The clinic was better able to spread the about its professional services and educate the public on salient issues in the world of spinal health.
5. A Bajillion Hits became a .biz success story by providing clients with complete marketing and technical support across a comprehensive cross-section of online and digital platforms.
6. Naked Pizza is a unique .biz success story. It’s not just another pizza restaurant. It’s an eco-friendly, socially conscious business with revolutionary ideas about the fast food and take-out industry.
7. British designer Adrian Morley realized his dream in early 2003 and launched an agency that combines creative logic, eye-catching design and commercial awareness to create exciting ideas that engage the target market and workforce.
8. Fitch, an award-winning global agency with 12 international studios, is featured as a .biz success story for being bold.
9. Just like .biz, business-opportunities.biz exists to help self-starters, small businesses and entrepreneurs fulfill their dreams of launching successful businesses.
10. An award-winning world leader in SEO as recognized by TopSEOs.com, ArteWorks is known for delivering innovation and long-term results by keeping an eye on what’s next.

Are you a .biz owner with a success story and interested in sharing? We are waiting to hear from you!

Neustar is excited to announce a new partnership with the National Small Business Association (NSBA). The two organizations are joining forces to spread the word about connecting small businesses with new online venues.

Neustar administers the .biz generic top level domain, which has become a preferred domain name alternative for many small businesses worldwide. As an early user of .biz, the National Small Business Association understands the importance of being online to boost business growth. Both Neustar and NSBA are committed to helping small businesses get online and be found.

According to a study by 1&1 Internet, 80 percent of businesses with a website say they’re “essential” and with 85 percent of consumers searching online before they buy, small businesses are encouraged to build their online presence.

Read more on this partnership.

There are many different opinions about whether a small business needs to have a website or if a social media presence is enough. While these tools are a great place to start, a website is what I would say is the ultimate “linchpin” for your business being found online.

Below are 4 reasons to establish a website:

Branding and Awareness

Provides a place that you can build your brand, create your businesses personality and Engage with your consumers. Your website is another sales tool that can be leveraged as a digital storefront and ecommerce portal.

Establishes credibility

Reinforces that your business is legitimate and trustworthy. In a recent study by Weber Shandwick, “it doesn’t matter how great your product is – if people don’t trust you, they won’t be interested in it.”

Provides Resources

Provides a place you can provide content for your consumers to take, print and share with others.

Build your Community

Engage with your consumers by giving them the ability to join your mailing list for news and updates. Email outreach is another traditional, and highly effective tactic is customer retention, acquisition and building awareness. Introduce your team and add a personal flare to your business.

There should not be a question as to whether or not small business should have a website – it is should be more about when. In a study by the Kelsey Group- 97% of consumers use the Internet to research products or services in their local area. Of that 97% , 90% use search engines, 48% use Internet Yellow Pages. 42% use comparison shopping sites and 24% use vertical sites.

Predictions for 2012 show that there will be upwards of 154.6 million online shoppers which is a 4.4% from 2011 and 88.1% of the total US population using the internet will browse or research products online.

Basically, if you don’t have a website, you are missing a huge opportunity to put your business on the map. Your consumers are looking for you and you want to be found.

In today’s digital world- every small business needs to have some basic tools for successful marketing. While there are many tools online to help make managing your business easier, there are a few essential “ingredients” to being successful online. Below I have compiled a list of those that are most important in 2012 with some key reasons on why to consider them now.

1. A Website that is enabled for Mobile Devices
   “Did you know 71 percent of smartphone users that see TV, press or online ad, do a mobile search – will they find your mobile site or your competitors’?” If you need some help finding a cost effective way to build your website and enable it to be viewed easily on mobile devices, check out this article in the ecommerce guide.
2. A Business Facebook Page
   With more than 800 million people using Facebook today, this is a great place to start promoting your business, building fans and engaging with your target customers. It is free and an excellent tool for announcing promotions, news related items and engaging with your audience. Facebook is focused on helping small businesses succeed and can prove to be a cost effective marketing tool.
3. A LinkedIn Profile & Company Page
   Another essential channel to leverage, especially if you are B2B. With over 100 million people on LinkedIn- the odds are in your favor to grow your business through networking with potential partners, engaging with potential customers, researching market trends etc. Learn more about ways Small business can use LinkedIn.
4. A Business YouTube Channel
   As the second largest search engine- YouTube is a great way to showcase your expertise through visuals as well as drive traffic back to your website. Top 10 Tips can be found here.
5. An SEO Strategy
   Some basic principles of SEO are optimizing your content with relevant key words, attract as many backlinks as you can from other sites and ensure that your site is search engine friendly. Too much flash and other video content can make your site difficult to “crawl” by the search engines. Growing your business organically is a key factor to your success online.

As a small business owner, you owe it to yourself and your business to get online, be social and optimize for success in 2012. There are many resources and loads of information available at your fingertips, just figure out what your strategy is going to be this year and take it one step at a time!

Over the past few weeks, we have been focusing heavily on the importance of a website for small businesses. Planning is key to a successful website so don’t rush it, but don’t forget about marketing your business in the meantime.

Build your identity
While you might not have an actual website presence, you can still secure your brand and start leveraging it on print resources such as business cards through VistaPrint, flyers, and advertisements. Organizations such as Intuit offer domain name registration services and provide additional resources to get your online “footprint” established when you are ready.

Advertise through some traditional print publications
Leveraging resources such as local newsletters can be a cost efficient way to promote your business and build awareness of your products and services within your local community.  These can be homeowner associations or other organizations that publish monthly or even quarterly communications and are typically read more thoroughly than general newspapers.  Even better, a lot of these are now going online through services like MailChimp that offers a simple way to track readership and statistics.

Get listed in online directories
Consumers are most likely not buying a newspaper or sifting through a heavy yellow pages phone book, they are going online and searching for what they need. Sites such as Yelp, MerchantCircle, Google Local Business Center, Angie’s List, Yahoo! Local,  YellowPages.com, SearchLocal, and SuperPages offer online directory services that allow businesses to create a free listing.  Inaddition to listing your businesses details at no cost, this is a great resource for your customers to provide testimonials, feedback and reviews about your business.

In a nutshell, you don’t have to have a website to start marketing your business. Take advantage of the free services and low cost options to promote your brand and be found, online!

While conducting some recent research on the “Who’s Who” of social media for small businesses, I stumbled across a great resource with a library of infographics. The suite of infographics included the value of a social following, identifying a small business owner, the value of blogs for small businesses specifically, and so much more.

The Infographic that I found to be a true testament to the power of Social media was one released earlier this year and designed to help small businesses know where to start and where to spend their time. Andrew from Imbue Marketing highlights each of the networks unique point of difference is, who is using it (IE. demographics and the interests) as well as provides some guidance on how small businesses should be using the networks.

For Small businesses just getting started, this is an excellent guide to understanding the audiences on each as well as ways to utilize each tool. Aligning this information with your online business strategy should help you select where to start and what will reap the most reward for your business model.

Of the nine listed – I always recommend starting with those that are more widely known such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In. Next in line would be Youtube, Google+ and then based on the type of business, the others are more specialized for specific to common interests. The combined potential reach of the first three is well over 1 Billion and that opens up many doors.

The team at Imbue has captured the essence of each resource and the potential value they can bring to various types of businesses. While taking the leap into Social Media can be a bit “nerve racking” – using resources like this to prioritize your first steps and where to go next can make it all much more fun and rewarding for the small business owners that don’t have time to waste and need to find a way to reach and engage with their audiences often!

Blogging for business has become an essential search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, but to experience its full benefits, you have to harness the format correctly. A lot of businesses make major blogging blunders, which can neutralize or even detract from their SEO value.

These are the three most common commercial blogging mistakes:

1. Using an external domain.
   There are a lot of blog hosting websites out there which don’t charge users a dime. While the lack of financial investment is attractive, it’s actually a mistake to use these sites for your business blog because the SEO value that your posts generate will benefit the hosting site, not your company website. Instead, integrate your blog into your current website, or create a privately owned and operated blog website and pepper your posts with lots useful content.
2. Choosing the wrong blog topics.
   The aim of a blog should be to provide added value to prospective customers. When blogging for business, many companies err by focusing too closely on their products and services. Instead, offer helpful, well-researched customer information and keep your marketing messages to a minimum. Some tips to follow: post about current events that are related to your business, and offer solutions to common problems and issues that consumers encounter in your industry. Experiment with your tone, but be professional and hire good writers — they will make a world of difference.
3. Being infrequent.
   To generate the most traffic, you need to update your blog constantly. SEO experts suggest that you create new posts at least once a week, but more is better. Also, keep in mind that it takes time to see the benefits of blogging for business; don’t give up if you don’t get results right away.

Blogging is a great tool for every business and can reap many rewards if done consistently and correctly.

Small businesses struggle at times with creating an online presence. When they do, they might not be getting the most out of their efforts. Utilizing social media and a website can help to brand an online presence.

The NSBA is holding a discussion on “How to Make the Most of Your Online Presence.” The discussion will help you leverage the utilization of websites and social media.

This teleconference on April 10th from 1-1:45pm EDT will provide best practices and how to drive business through a website as well as tips from small-business owners and experts on the best uses for social media in the small-business world.

Speakers include:

• Pedro Alfonso, NSBA Vice Chair for Communications
• Stephanie Klaiber, Neustar Marketing Manager
• Dan Galbraith
• Tim Reynolds
• Mark Larkin, Lark Creative, LLC, CEO

Register today to reserve your spot!

Productivity tools are especially essential for new start-ups, as they help you track progress towards key goals and benchmarks during your crucial first few months of operation. With the advent of digital technology, productivity tools have become more accessible, specialized and effective than ever before. Some of the most helpful options include time tracking tools, project management software, CRM software, marketing tools and accounting tools.

Here’s a closer look at how each of these productivity tools can help you manage your time, money and business:

1. Time tracking software. Products such as Timefox and FunctionFox give you in-depth analyses of the amount of time spent on specific tasks and projects, helping you improve customer service and boost organizational efficiency.
2. Project management software. There are plenty of project management options on the market, which can help you track progress of single or multiple ongoing projects. You can quickly and easily manage deliverables, meet milestones, share files and organize communications.
3. CRM software. Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps you provide superior customer service by storing customer contact information, transaction histories, purchase preferences, service calls, meeting notes and more all in one convenient place. Check out Highrise from www.37signals.com, or visit www.salesforce.com if you want tools designed to support single-person operations.
4. Internet marketing tools. These are perhaps your most important ally, as creating, maintaining and updating your online presence is key to attracting business in today’s competitive landscape. Major Internet players like Google as well as niche sites like HubSpot can help you do everything from building a website and managing site content to creating online ad campaigns, converting visitors and generating leads.
5. Accounting tools. Keeping track of your finances is crucial to your financial success, and productivity tools like FreshBooks and QuickBooks help you manage everything from customer accounts and invoicing to taxes and payroll. Also, be sure to offer your customers as wide a range of payment options as possible. Take advantage of services like PayPal in addition to allowing the safe and secure processing of online credit card payments.

There are many tools and resources out there to help you get your business started and ensure success once you have your Business Plan ready.  Research and choose the ones the best meet your budget and your businesses needs.

Neustar and .Biz are celebrating 10 Years of small business successes and is excited to announce the First Quarter 2012 Recipient of the Best of .biz Awards. Of the ten Best of .biz Nominees featured in the .biz 10th Anniversary promotion, ArteWorks.biz, an Austin SEO company based in Texas, closed the first quarter as the undisputed winner.

Shortly after its inception as an Internet marketing and Web design firm in 1995, ArteWorks shifted direction to fill the gap as SEO gained prominence. Today, ArteWorks is an award-winning SEO firm recognized for delivering innovative, long term results and staying ahead of the curve. Matt Foster, ArteWorks SEO founder and CEO credits his business’ success in part to its .biz web address. Foster says, “Our .biz domain shows customers that we mean business. My.biz allows us flexibility in choosing a domain name that reflects who we are, is widely recognized, and is ranked well on the search engines. ArteWorks SEO has experienced tremendous success and growth using the .biz domain extension.”

Awarding ArteWorks SEO the coveted Best of .biz Award is just the beginning of this yearlong promotion to recognize the achievements of small business around the world. Congratulations to Arteworks.biz!

The second quarter Best of .biz Promotion is well underway, featuring ten new Best of .biz Nominees vying for a chance to take home the title. Be sure to our 10 Year page to vote for your favorite the small business.

Nominees for 2Q include – Who will Win Your Vote?  Vote NOW!

• Westwinds
• Ministry Websites
• Become a Franchise Owner
• The Light Site
• the-site.biz
• Jinx
• Buzz
• Green Alliance
• Fifth Media
• iCapital

Looking to get your small business recognized? It’s not too late! The Best of .biz Promotion wants to celebrate you. Tell us how you’ve leveraged a .biz domain to boost your business and marketing for a chance to be featured as a third or fourth quarter Best of .biz Nominee.

If you run a home-based business, or if you conduct a significant portion of your business activities from a home office, you know that optimizing productivity can be a challenge. The key to successful time management in a home-based business is to create an environment that makes you feel as though you’re at work. Separating business and pleasure isn’t always easy when you’re at home, but with a little effort, you can strike the perfect balance between life and work.

Minimize Distractions

One of the first things you should do is create a specially designated work space. Outside distractions — television, personal phone calls, visitors — should be eliminated. Create a home office space and treat it like what it is: your workplace.

Create a Schedule

Another common problem is time management. After all, there’s nobody clocking your arrival and departure.
Making a schedule, then sticking to it, are vital for productivity. You can do this one of two ways: create an hourly work schedule and treat it as you would any other job. If you resolve to be at work by 9:00 and stay until 5:00, then do it. Your other option is to set hard and fast goals for each work day. You don’t have to watch the clock as much as you have to keep yourself to task until you accomplish everything on your to-do list.

More Home Productivity Tips

Here are more ways you can remain at the top of your game in your home-based business:

• Do your most important work at the beginning of the day
• Start early — this will boost your morale by making you feel like you’re accomplishing a lot, relative to the time of day
• Create time limits for accomplishing specific jobs and tasks
• Count all breaks you take towards your time allotment for the day
• Push yourself to work 15 more minutes when you feel like you’ve hit your ceiling

While remaining productive when working at home can be a challenge at first, you’ll be rewarded for your efforts. Home-based workers avoid stressful commutes, enjoy excellent scheduling flexibility and minimize their transportation costs.

This week, we are shining the spotlight on a Best of .Biz nominee, Jinx.biz.

Jinx found its niche in 1999, designing and creating clothing for a targeted group of self proclaimed “Gamers and Geeks.” Originally, co-owners Sean Gailey, Tim Norris and Jason Kraus designed and marketed their trendy and innovative goods in a 10’x10’ bedroom. Over time, their small business has grown.

Jinx makes clothes on license for Digg.com, a well known social media network. Jinx.biz has evolved to be so much more than just an online store; its an online community currently running a t-shirt design challenge, informative blog, jinx sightings and other features that engage and connect fans.

All of these reasons and more are why Jinx.biz is a Best of .biz Nominee for Q2.

The, LLC understands the old adage, “under promise and over deliver” and takes it one step further. This advertising and marketing firm delivers exceptional results AND entertains. The creative team really understands what it takes to stand out in a crowd and is dedicated to making the process an exciting experience.

The, LLC prides itself on exceeding expectations by delivering phenomenal advertising and marketing strategies and creative while treating every client as a VIP, regardless of the size of the campaign.

Delivering big ideas, from ad campaigns, product & company branding to event marketing, with the personal touch of a boutique agency, the LLC has been nominated for the Q2 Best of .biz award and can be found at http://www.the-site.biz.