This Week in Small Business: SEO strategies Google loves, ways to perfect email marketing and more

news you can use

It’s not everyday that we get to mention Rihanna and Jerry Maguire in the same article; today is one of those days. But more important than learning about them, you’ll get insights into marketing, where our economy is headed and how to pilot your small business to the next level of success.

Leadership, management and productivity

Want to add same-day local delivery to your small business without having the hassle of providing your own vehicle, insurance, etc.? Uber is debuting an on-demand small business delivery service in NYC, San Francisco and Chicago.

The new year is sneaking up on us and that always foreshadows tax time. Discover how simple documentation can lower your small business’ taxes. Speaking of taxes, do you know how to report a loss in your small business?

The NY Times and Amazon have been squabbling about an unflattering article on Amazon’s management style. We’ll see who comes out on top of that dustup. In the meantime, here’s how to get the high performance of Amazon without the backstabbing, says Jason Forrest.

Maximum Performance Strategist Matt Mayberry says that listening is an art and mastering it will make you a great leader.

Marketing and sales

Have you considered social bookmarking in your campaign to boost website traffic? That’s one of the nine simple strategies listed in this YFS Magazine article.

You aren’t going to have Rihanna’s record sales, but you can have some of the strategies she, and other celebrities, use to maximize their social media exposure.

Sometimes it’s easy to think that every marketing strategy involves social media. Here are five that don’t. But if you are heavy into social media marketing, you’re probably using Facebook. Here’s how to quickly overcome seven “fatal” FB marketing mistakes.

Black Hat SEO is out. Link building from a holistic SEO perspective is in. Online branding or building authority is another Google-friendly strategy.

If you’re trying to squeeze cash out of your WordPress site, you need to know about these 10 affiliate marketing tools and plugins.

Successful small business owners never stop improving what they do. Here are eight steps for perfecting your email marketing.

Two-thirds of the B2C content marketers who use Facebook say it’s effective. Is that high, or low?

Here are 5 ways to generate 25 small business blog post ideas in 25 Minutes. (Does that equal 125 post ideas in 125 minutes?)

In the spirit of being ecofriendly, efficient and creating less work for ourselves, try these five tips for getting more mileage out of your small business blog archive. But when you sit down to create new blogs, keep these 39 tips in mind.

Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation

Bill Wagner says that critical thinking isn’t essential for startups – rational thinking is! (Preview: critical thinkers are critics, not solution finders.)

Politics, government and the economy

Boris Schlossberg, BK’s director of FX strategy, says that we’re stuck in a “Jerry Maguire” economy – Show me the money! What this means for the Fed and economic growth.