Business Information for Entrepreneurs by an Entrepreneur

What your customers say about your business can make or break your ultimate success. A company lives by its reputation. What is yours? Do you even know what your customers are saying about you? Do you encourage customer reviews to improve your reputation?

These are questions you should ask yourself. If you don't have one in place already, you should have a customer review policy as part of your SEO and marketing strategies.

So what can you do to improve your customer reviews? Here are a few tips:

Read Popular Review Sites. Visit popular online review sites like the following:

• Maps.Google.com
• Local.Yahoo.com
• Yelp.com
• Gowalla.com
• InsiderPages.com
• CitySearch.com
• Local.com
• MerchantCircle.com

These sites, and others, are becoming popular places for customers to state their opinions about a business, and they also provide opportunities for local businesses to connect online through social networking. Peruse these sites out and find out what's being said about you. Then take measures to improve your reputation online.

Ask for Reviews. The power of suggestion and a simple request from you can get your business on the boards. Regularly thank customers for their patronage and invite them to write reviews on one or more sites.

Reward for Positive Reviews. Thank your customers when they say something nice. Offer them a discount on their next purchase. Or give them a free product or service. You can generate more positive reviews when you customers know you are listening.

Never Slant The Odds. Online review sites like Yelp have had negative press in the past about business owners trying to "fix" their reviews by writing their own anonymous opinions. However, unethical practices like this can backfire with devastating consequences if you are found out. The best practice is to never try to manipulate review sites.

Respond to Negative Reviews. At some point, you may find a negative opinion posted on a popular review site. Don't panic. Your business can still gain positive exposure if you handle negative opinions correctly. Never berate an individual for writing a negative opinion. Always write a response in a calm and professional manner. Letting others know that you respond to criticism will help them realize you are a true and ethical business person.

Do you own and operate a franchise? Many entrepreneurs and new small business owners go the route of owning a franchise to get a running start into an established business niche using a recognized name and operating paradigm. However, most often, these entrepreneurs depend too much on the franchisor to perform all search engine optimization tactics. Alas, that folly usually costs the entrepreneur valuable search engine ranking.

The fact is that even with a recognizable name, you need to announce your location, business hours, product or service offerings, special deals, etc. Your franchisor will not do that for you.

You, as a franchise owner, must take ownership of your own SEO efforts. With millions of people using mobile phone searches, GPS searches, and search engine searches, you could be losing potential business if your specific franchise does not show up on search results.

Here are a few things you can do:

• Conduct a Basic Search. Right now, and at least once a month, conduct a basic search for your specific franchise on all the major search engines and GPS databases like Navteq.com. Search for your franchise in your city or neighborhood. Do you find your listing? If not, you need to make improvements to your franchise SEO.

• Claim Your Listing. Many search engines provide business listings as part of their search results. Take Google, for instance. In almost any search for a business, Google will provide a "Google Maps" listing of businesses for a specific area. If you are not there, you need to claim your listing so it shows up every time. Go to Maps.Google.com. Then click the link that says, "Put your business on Google Maps." Google will lead you through the process of creating an account and creating your business listing.

• Join Social Media. Many social media sites like FourSquare, Yelp, and Gowalla were designed specifically for letting others know about businesses like yours. Create your own account and encourage users to visit your business through these sites.

• Check Regularly. Keep a regular calendar to monitor and measure your SEO efforts. Are people finding you on Google Maps? Does your pay per click campaigns have a reasonable ROI? Keeping on top of your SEO efforts will help them be more successful.

While your franchise gave you a running start, taking your SEO efforts into your own hands will give you a great leap into more profits.

Unregulated credit card fees have meant boon profits for the major credit card issuers and banks - and high expenses charged to small businesses. Since 2003, the swipe fees received by credit card companies have nearly doubled. Swipe fees for credit and debit cards translate into billions of dollars annually for the big credit card companies. The Neilson Report estimated that small businesses and merchants paid about $62 billion in swipe fees to credit card companies in 2009. However, little has been done to help the small business avoid the ever-increasing fees - until now.

Congress and Credit Cards

Congress has been earnestly working on the Wall Street Reform Bill. Both the US Senate and House passed different versions of the same bill in May of 2010, and it has been in committee ever since, with the two wings attempting to reconcile the two. In addition, a recent additional amendment not in the original bills includes a regulation and limitation of the interchange fee allowed by credit card companies.

Fees Today and Tomorrow

Currently, small businesses pay a fee between 1% and 3% of every purchase a customer makes by credit or debit. Those fees go to the big credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard, as well as to the banks who issue the cards. However, is 3% of every purchase a realistic charge to merchants? Our representatives don't think so.

While the credit card companies lobbied to prevent the regulation of the fees, a compromise was made and announced in June 2010. The compromise gives the Federal Reserve the ability to cap the fees charged by credit card issuers. With the new legislation, fees could be reduced to about half of what is now charged.

The compromise is that the regulation will only affect debit card transactions. All credit card transactions and swipe fees would continue to be unregulated. However, debit card swipe fees amounted to about $20 billion of the $62 billion earned by Visa and MasterCard last year.

Better Profits for Businesses

Finally, small business merchants who accept credit and debit transactions can rejoice with the news of regulated fees. Accepting debit card transactions will not have to cost you your profit margin so drastically any longer.