Keeping track of who owes you money, is always a headache for any small business. Thankfully, there are several helpful tools out there that can help you stay on top of managing invoices. Two web based tools of note are Freshbooks
and Blinksale. Both are simple to use, easy to manage and contain powerful features that allow you to generate invoices, invoice templates, enter paymentsetc… You can even (for a fee) have your invoices mailed automatically. Freshbooks also has a very nice integrated time-tracker that allows you to track the time you spend on specific projects. However, for my money, nothing beats Bamboo Invoice.
Continue Reading…
Monthly Archives: April 2009
What’s up with that website score badge thingy
You may have noticed the new badge over on the sidebar. That is hibbittsconsulting.com’s web marketing score as calculated by HubSpot’s Website Grader. From the site: “Website Grader is a free SEO tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.”
So, basically what the badge says is that hibbittsconsulting.com ranks in the top 26% of all websites on the internet in terms of its marketing effectiveness. That’s right, out of the more than 182 billion websites on the internet1, hibbittsconsulting.com is better at gaining access to potential new customers than 74% of them.
It takes a lot of skill, imagination & hard work to build a website that can reach out to new clients, and generate new customers. But that’s what you’ll get when you contact me to help you manage your internet marketing efforts.
Here’s to new customers!
1Based on the October 2008 Netcraft Web Server Survey: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2008/10/29/october_2008_web_server_survey.html
Get a cheap virtual phone system plus an 800 number.
One of the most important business tools available is the humble telephone. Even though the internet has evolved into an indespensible tool for business, the phone still has it’s place. You customers, suppliers & partners still need the option of speaking one on one to a real human being. In fact, the internet allows small business owners to have professional grade telephone systems for a fraction of the cost that you might expect to pay. Tools such as Skype & Vonage allow your small business to have multiple local telephone numbers, 800 numbers, voicemail, automated call forwarding, etc… for little more than you’re paying now for basic service. One tool that I especially like is Kall8. Continue Reading…
It’s a major award!
OK, extra credit to anyone who gets the movie reference in the title to this post. But I was recently honored to have “Blooming”, one of my recent projects featured at the Nucleus CMS Skins Site. Nucleus is a very powerful blogging software, similar to WordPress or Blogger, and it’s what I use to power all of my blog sites. Nucleus maintains a database of all of your blog posts and manages the navigation of the blog site. It also allows you to create “skins” or custom designs that overlay the site. Blooming was an original design by freecsstemplates.org which I ported to the Nucleus system. You can download the skin here, or you can get it from the Nucleus Skins Site along with many other great skins for Nucleus CMS.
As always, I am available to create custom skins and themes for your blog (whether Nucleus or WordPress) or to port an existing design to a blog skin or theme.