Google has a business listing feature, any local enterprise should use immediately. It shows up when folks search for a business name or keyword associated (strongly) with your business. You can list your business at Google using their online listing feature.

Many sites have fast hosting, but come up slow because of external services or widgets, even images.

Javascript and buttons from external services can block the rest of the website design until they are downloaded by the visitor. The local stuff would have loaded fast as usual, but the way web browsers read web pages is top to bottom and in chunks or two or four elements at a time. So, if four of a site's first images come from an external website and they're slow, the site won't load until they do.

After logging into your Facebook account, click on the chat popup on the bottom right corner of the screen. Click on Options and unclick Play Sound for New Messages.

Start up your Outlook 2007 program, click on Tools (at the top), Account Settings and click on New.

Configuring an email client for Google Apps (free or commercial) requires you collect and know a few details about your account. You'll need your username, email address, password and you'll need to determine if you need to use POP or IMAP. If you don't have a preference, POP is much faster and simpler, though it doesn't allow you to sync your email to multiple devices.

Email marketing is still very powerful. Though social media has more of our attention lately, it doesn't compete with the fact that the messages sent to a double opt-in list do actually drop in the personal inbox of the prospective reader. Like direct (snail) mail, it is a very successful methodology for marketing. Unlike direct (snail) mail, it is not very expensive.

There are a few rules you must follow for email marketing if you want to avoid the [spammer] label.

People complain about getting mail from people they don't know when they don't have a reference point.

Mentioning someone is an important social act. It's a good way to get on their radar as well as give credit for links or help. If someone does a good job, telling the world about it boosts their ego, helps the community know about their service of offering and also increases your recognition to that person. Telling tens of thousands of people you appreciate someone gets their attention.

Using Google Buzz for networking and business communications.

Beginning this month, I'm going to hold a Q&A session which is open to anyone. Add your question to this blog post as a comment and I'll consider it for answers. If I choose not to answer your question, I will address it. So, please share!

The theme this month is online stores, but it's a free for all. So, ask anything you like.

Questions already selected for answer(s) this month:

You will have a lot of services enabled over the course of your internet presence. All this stuff can easily become overwhelming. The easiest thing to do is create a schedule and a disciplined list of tasks. I'm going to work on creating a practical tutorial on this process this week. I hope you'll have time to review it when I post.