Web Site Maintenance Musts
from Entrepreneur
And even if you do perform frequent check-ups on your website, are you sure you're giving it a really thorough once-over? About once a month, you should "pop the hood" to perform a comprehensive check-up, find what's not working and fix it. Here's what you should be looking for. More

All the Ways Your Laziness is Costing You
from Forbes
Forbes knows you're not really lazy. But they did ask a slew of experts, in fields ranging from personal finance to health care, to estimate the not-so-hidden costs or our laziness, and to demonstrate what little you can do -- because in many cases that's all it takes -- to turn things around. Here are some highlights. More

Put Down the Ax: Five Alternatives to Layoffs
from Smart Money's Small Biz
Trying to keep the lights on is challenging for many small businesses these days. But while laying off employees can save the company the expense of salaries and paying for benefits, such a move is often not the most cost-effective answer. In fact, layoffs can actually cost your business money, especially if you expect things to pick up once the economy recovers. More

Run Cheap TV Commercials with Google TV Ads
from Inc.
Google tracks how many seconds viewers watch before changing the channel or hitting Fast Forward on their DVRs. Advertisers aren't charged when viewers watch less than five seconds of the ad or if they watch it later on a DVR, but if there are a lot of channel jumpers, that may indicate the ad isn't a good fit for that time slot. "It's like buying a banner ad, except when someone clicks the remote, it means that it wasn't relevant to them," says Michael Steib, director of Google TV Ads. More

How to Measure Your Web Presence
from bMighty
Better ways of measuring social media through Web analytics and search marketing are raising the bar on the quality of information small and midsize businesses can collect -- and what they can do with it. More

Free Podcast: What Most Retailers Get Wrong
from BusinessWeek
Herb Sorensen, who applies scientific methods and technologies in his new book, Inside the Mind of the Shopper (Wharton School Publishing), offers insights for retailers, including concentrating on best-selling items and guiding customers with visual cues. More

Why Every Manager Should Understand Store Design and Visual Marketing
from DMSRetail
Your store's design elements - the space planning, fixtures and casework, signage and graphics, visual merchandising, lighting - should be your #1 salesperson all by itself. If a customer has 10 questions over the course of their shopping experience in your store, the store itself should be answering at least seven of them, leaving the store staff to handle the higher level sales questions that simply close the deal. More

Five Great New Web Tools
from SM Small Biz
New tools are constantly being developed to make our lives and our businesses easier to run. The problem is that if you are in a routine (or dare I say rut?) and used to a particular tool, you may not be aware that there are several new things out there to make your business more efficient and easier for you to manage. Here's a list of five web-based replacements for many traditional business needs. Each is not only better-suited for today's entrepreneur, but also will save you time and money. More