I heard through the grapevine that CoTY entries are down this year. If you can complete a binder or two, the chances of winning are really, really good. Can’t find the time? Suppose it takes 6 hours to complete an entry – that’s about 1/2 hour per day, between now and the end of the month – very doable. If you divide the work between two people… more doable. The benefits of being an award-winning company are obvious: 1) Feels good — provides a much-needed morale boost for staff and owners. His response began, “Well, I noticed they won an award…&#. Procrastinating? MORE >>

It seems everyone in the building industry is buzzing about search engine optimization or SEO — the practice of  optimizing your website so that you will “be found&# by the search engines. Competition to top search engine results for long-tail search terms like “St Paul Remodeling&# and “minneapolis custom cabinets&# is intensifying. Before long, it will be impossible to achieve top rankings without a good link-building strategy. Avoid mass-submission/ SEO-play article sites. It’s ok to submit a press release to the online services. But be careful! MORE >>

There’s so much to know about websites and online marketing, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. This is especially true in the building and remodeling world. Where a lot of people are way behind the curve. So — in the spirit of helping you learn what every small business owner should know about online marketing — I’m going to point you to a really helpful article on the subject. Here it is: How to Optimize Your Site for Search. This is a really good newsletter. also recommend subscribing to Today’s Small Business News. It’s where I found the article. MORE >>

I’m a fan of WIRED. It’s about technology, mostly, but they often include features about the intersection of technology, design, entertainment, economics, business, etc. So technology is their “lens&# for looking at the world. While finishing my lunch today, this makeover caught my eye. Click on the picture to make it bigger. Now ask yourself: how interesting would this story be without the text? Not very. And yet, this is exactly how many businesses in the industry present their work — online and in printed sales tools. Pictures. No text. No captions. No context. MORE >>

The IRS provides income data by Zip Code for every state in the U.S. The most recent data set from 2008 includes the number of returns filed, Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), and 29 other financial fields. Bungalo recently used this data to look up income data for households in a St. Paul Minnesota zip code. There were 1107 total returns with AGI of $100,000 or more, and 251 returns with AGI over $200,000. The average income of the group with incomes greater than $200K was $293,000. The data is useful in answering two important questions: 1. Filed under: tips and ideas. tips and ideas MORE >>