Small business advice - Hamilton, ON

The following are all the meetings in January for the Burlington Chamber of Commerce.

All Candidates Meeting - 2006

Jan 10
Description:
FEDERAL ELECTION - JANUARY 23rd
Do you know where all the candidates stand on the issues that are important to your business?

This Burlington All Candidates meeting is your chance to ask the candidates about the subjects that matter to you most.
Seating is limited.
You must register and pay in advance.

Details:
Date and Time: Jan 10, 2006
07:15 am - 09:00 am
Location: Holiday Inn Burlington Hotel
3063 South Service Rd.
Burlington, ON
Cost:
Members Only Sign-In
Member ticket: $18.70 + GST = $20.00

Non-Members Only
Future member ticket: $28.04 + GST = $30.00

L&L - Healthy Lifestyle for a Better Business
Description:
As part of our commitment to providing education opportunities to help you grow your business the Chamber is continuing the Lunch & Learn Seminar Series. Take part in all!
Includes lunch.

Limited seating - advance registration only, no refunds for cancellations by Jan. 10.

Details:
Date and Time: Jan 17, 2006
12:00 pm - 01:00 pm
Location: Team Burlington Boardroom
414 Locust St. 2nd floor
Burlington, ON
Cost:

Members Only Sign-In
Member: $15 including GST

Non-Members Only
Future member: $20 including GST

Business after 5 - Hilton Garden Inn

Jan 18
Description:
Visit the new Hilton Garden Inn Toronto/Burlington and discover that we have everything - right where you need it!
Details:
Date and Time: Jan 18, 2006
05:00 pm - 07:30 pm
Location: 985 Syscon Rd.
Burlington, ON
Cost:
Member Reservation: Your Business Card at the Door

Cooking Up Business Success - Cajun Style

Jan 25
Cajun Theme Night

Description:
An opportunity to extend your hands-on culinary experience and network over dinner…
The evening includes preparation of bread, appetizer, starter, entree, and dessert.
Afterwards participants will be seated and served dinner
Coffee and tea included - All drinks Cash Bar
Sign up for all!

Limited seating - Advance registration only - No cancellations within one week of event

Details:
Date and Time: Jan 25, 2006
06:00 pm - 09:30 pm
Location:
Paradiso Restaurant
2041 Pine Street
Burlington, ON
Cost:
Members Only Sign-In
Member - Cajun Cooking: $60.00 + GST = $64.20

Business before 9 - Goodlife Fitness Club

Jan 26
Description:
Be a guest of the Goodlife Fitness Club for the first Business Before 9 of 2006! The staff looks forward to seeing everyone there.

Bring your business cards and network up a sweat!

Details:
Date and Time: Jan 26, 2006
07:45 am - 09:00 am
Location:
777 Guelph Line
Burlington, ON
Cost:
Guest: Your business card at the Door

It is a quick and easy temptation to believe someone when they say to you, “for ‘x’ number of dollars, I will auto-submit your website to hundreds of directories and link partners and you will see outstanding web traffic and have increase in sales in no time”.

Do not believe them. Auto submitting for search engine optimization is a bad idea. If many people are doing this, the quality of the links are then eroded. At worst, those who have submitted to too many spammy link exchanges and directories will be penalized by the big search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Submitting your web site to web directories should only be a small part of your overall link building strategy. Do not only believe me, believe the king of Search Engine strategy, Aaron Wall from seobook. The most important links that your website has are high quality, relevant, industry-related links from high ranking web pages / web sites. Spammy link exchanges have hurt many well-intentioned web site owners.

Search engines are getting smarter about spam detection

The search engines, like Google, do not just take into account how many incoming links you have, but also the quality of inbound links and if the links are surrounded by low quality links, that is, spammy / low trust links. Search engines are getting smarter about spam detection and detecting manipulation of search engine results. Search engines can also penalize your site for a time and it would have been far better to have a professional consult before you submit anything.

If you are wondering what types of advertising to consider for your business, you should consider Internet marketing. If these statistics are any indicator, 2006 will see a healthy increase in advertising dollars being spent towards marketing for the web.

The research
Online survey courtesy of Anita Cambell from Small Business Trends

Main Ways Vendors Find Small Business Customers – not including Online
#1 Referrals ( 83% )
#2 Networking events ( 52% )
#3 Cold calling ( 40% )
#4 Direct mail ( 34% )
#5 Trade shows ( 32% )
#6 Boards and civic organizations ( 23% )
#7 Retail walk-ins ( 16% )
#8 Other ( 9%)

Main Ways Vendors Find Small Business Customers Online

#1 Search Engines ( 73% )
#2 Visit website directly ( 71% )
#3 Published articles ( 34% )
#3 Email campaigns ( 33% )
#4 Your own blog ( 28% )
#5 Online ads ( 25% )
#6 Links in 3rd part blogs ( 23% )
#7 Forums or discussion boards ( 23% )
#8 Yellow pages site or Directory ( 18% )
#9 Other ( 8% )

The report is based on data collected from an online survey between October 29 and November 13, 2005. There were 481 respondents.

More stats
Online advertising in Canada accounted for 1.5 percent of total advertising revenue in 2003– less than half of the 3.3 percent share in U.S. market.

In the U.S., search marketing has grown to become the single largest segment of online advertising revenue, accounting for 35 percent of total Internet advertising spending in 2003

Hamilton Chamber of Commerce December 2005 Upcoming Events

November: NOMINATION MONTH FOR HAMILTON’S “2005 ROYAL BANK DISTINGUISHED CITIZEN OF THE YEAR & HAMILTON SPECTATOR YOUTH VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR AWARDS”
Thurs. Nov. 24th: CHAMBER CONNECTIONS - 7:45 a.m. – Chamber Club
Fri. Nov. 25th: DUNDAS CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY - 7:30 p.m. – Memorial Square, Dundas – Hosted by Chamber’s Dundas Division
Wed. Dec. 7th: ECONOMIC FORECAST 2006 DINNER - The Chamber Club
Thurs. Dec. 8th: CHAMBER CONNECTIONS - 7:45 a.m. – Chamber Club
Sun. Dec. 18th: ONE ENCHANTED EVENING - Opportunity for small business owners & employees to celebrate the season, featuring the Chamber’s fabulous buffet / musical entertainment. Reservations: T: 905 – 527 – 7241.
Dec. 15, 16, 20, 21, 22: PRESIDENT’S ANNUAL CHRISTMAS BUFFET - The Chamber Club – 11:45 a.m. – 2 p.m. – Reservations: T: 905 – 527 – 7241.

To register for any of these events email:
p.dieryck@hamiltonchamber.on.ca

Welcome to this entirely new web log (blog) for Hamilton Ontario Canada.

This blog has been started to help people in the Hamilton Ontario area to start a small business or to run an existing small business, with a focus on the Internet and marketing. I will also be covering web design and providing computer technology advice. I will be adding posts approximately 3 times a week.

Many of the experiences that I have went through in starting a small business in the Hamilton area will be useful for others and so I decided to start a blog. I will also post research, tips and comments from other business professionals as well as posting business networking events in the area.

I hope you find it useful. Please comment and suggest ways to improve this site so that all can benefit.

Yours Truly,
Dan V.